India Pre-Trip Preparations

Pre-Trip Preparations

 

Departure is just around the corner and I'm in a state of "do I bring this, will I need that, do I have too much stuff...?". Argh! There's nothing quite like waking up at 4:45 am to contemplate such questions!

It really puts my yoga to the test. Can I allow enough room for self-care, ritual and routine as I have this impending departure with a many things that need to be in order prior to boarding?

The answer of course is "yes"! That's one of the reasons why I've established these practices in the first place, to be able to keep on an even keel when the pressure gauge rises. So I continue with my morning meditation and chanting, yoga, bicycling and trying to get to bed a bit earlier than usual (that's the tough one).

But I'm ready to go and hold the space for those in great need. I have seen pictures from the first trip that is currently in Kolkata and seeing the faces of those people that I and my surrounding community have been working to support expands my heart.

I'm excited to be sharing this chapter of my yoga journey with all of you.

Be Still My Beating Heart

It's almost here...the day of lovers, Cupid's arrow, red roses, Valentines and chocolates.  At least that's what the marketing enthusiasts tout it to be and cynical me just likes to think that it's truly about love...in all its many incarnations.

We use the word "love" so easily and yet can have difficulty vocalizing it to others.  For example, "I loveto put sprinkles on cupcakes", "I love singing along to the Beatles", "I love going on vacation", "I love the features of satellite radio", etc.  You get the idea.  But when it comes to saying "I love you" directly to someone else, it can often get stuck in our throats.

I didn't grow up in a family where we said, "I love you" to each other.  We expressed our love through actions and acceptance.  Through giving to each other or supporting a sibling by attending their baseball game or concert are examples from my family.  So, when I started to have relationships, those "I love you's" just didn't come out of my mouth easily.  I had to really work at it and recognize that if I said it and it wasn't reciprocated that I'd have to manage my own feelings of rejection.

Although love seems to be inherent to all beings, I believe it to also be a practice.  How do you practice being loving?  Are you loving to others and not yourself?  Is what you say coming from a compassionate and well-intentioned place?  Do your actions reflect love or some other emotion?

One of the many gifts our yoga practice offers is that it gives us a venue to connect to the beat of our own heart and to be in a place of loving kindness.   Ahimsa, the first yama, is often translated as non-violence, or as I prefer, compassion...towards self, towards others and towards the Earth.  We begin our yoga from this place with the practice constantly challenging us to stay with this compassionate intention.  We can begin to slip out of self-love by overworking, under-eating, saying "yes" when we would be better served to say "no" and pushing ourselves beyond our own physical boundaries.

To be loving to others seems more obvious.  Random acts of kindness are actions more than bumper stickers.  Can we look into the eyes of those we care about and genuinely tell them how dear they are to us and that we love them?  Can we treat all beings with respect even when we don't agree with them?  Can we be kind to all animals, not just those that are cute and fuzzy?

And we could all be more loving to this planet by raising our awareness about how our consumption, our footprint and our story of "stuff" impacts the balance of the environment.  Do you really need that plastic bag?  Could we do away with less packaging?  Can we take public transport or ride our bike rather than hopping into our car?  Can we enjoy more peaceful moments without loud music, leaf blowers and lawn mowers?

So as Valentine's Day approaches, ask yourself how you express your love...to this planet, to your beloved, to your family & friends and most importantly, to yourself.

Will you be my Valentine?

Changing Positions

 

It's been almost a week since the conclusion of our annual tennis tournament, the Babolat World Tennis Classic, which Ed and I have been running for the past nine years. Ed does the majority of the work, planning, scheduling, organizing sponsors and the like whereas I run the tournament desk during the week of the event.

What my role entails is to keep the courts full by sending matches on court at their intended time. We use walkie-talkies to communicate with three roving umpires across 15-17 courts. So, you can imagine that when we had a complete day of rain on day six of eight, we had some catch up to do on day seven. Over 150 matches needed to be played on Saturday. To say it was non-stop would be completely correct. I was like an octopus at the desk, needing to stay focused (and calm) in order to make this run as smooth as possible. It's like being an air traffic controller at a tennis club.

What does this have to do with yoga? One word...posture.

I found that towards the end of the week my upper/middle back felt as though I had a hot spot...an electrical buzz. My knees ached and my lower back felt stiff. Even with doing a short few yoga poses after all of the morning matches were on court, taking a moment or two to do a chest opener with blocks and bringing a shortened foam roller, I still couldn't get past how sore my body was from staying in the same posture for hours on end.

Our bodies were built for movement. So anytime we hold them in a sustained position such as sitting, standing or lying down, the body begins to give us feedback. "OK, Jayne", it might say..."time to move out of this position into another one because I can't take this much longer".

Think of how many of us sit for hours at a computer. Stand for hours at a job (chefs, retail, hair stylists) or if we're ill, lay in bed until we're feeling good enough to get up.

Modernization has reeked havoc on our posture. Our heads are out in front of our torso; our shoulders are rounded forward; our chests are closed and tight; our back muscles overstretched and weak.

This held posture beckons for us to return to some semblance of balance and this is where yoga supports us. The practice is amazing at offering our spines an opportunity to move in all of its ranges of motion-forward, back, side-side and rotationally. When we undertake our yoga practice, we recalibrate our skeletons back into their intended functional patterns through lengthening and strengthening all that is tight and weak.

In addition to yoga, walking is hugely beneficial to overall health. Recent research on extended hours of sitting in office-based jobs has shown how this posture negatively impacts our health. In fact, treadmill desks and its associated research has grown in popularity. By simply walking at a work tread desk, at one mph in bouts of 30-minutes walking, 30-minutes sitting, the participants all lost weight. Overall health improved with total cholesterol decreasing, plasma triglycerides dropping on average 37 percent in total for all 18 study participants. No going to a gym...just going to work.



My experience this past week has once again reaffirmed how supportive my yoga practice can be. In addition, I might suggest that we install a walking desk at the tournament desk next year! So after you have finished reading this...stand up and stretch a bit, eh?

To Challenge Or Nurture? That is the question.

When we head out the door and make our way into a class, most of us do so because we want to get something out of it.  If we turn up and it seems as though it's not really making a difference, then we stop going.  Our compass is pointed toward finding just the right level of challenge.  However, having been in the fitness industry for many years and witnessing different yoga styles (power Vinyasa, hot yoga, etc) we most definitely meet up with challenges.  But so often, I have experienced or seen that by doing so, the concept of nurturing ourselves at the same time flies out the window. 

The harder, the better.  If it really challenges us then it must be really good for us.  Right?

Throughout my life, I have always pursued challenges.  When I see the word, it looks like CHALLENGE...all in bold and luring me into taking it.  The idea of looking after myself as I undertook the challenge was often greatly neglected.  The word

nurture was just that...seemingly small and insignificant.  I didn't realize until I started  yoga, that the two could co-habitate...if I allowed it.  I needed to invite nurturing into my challenges and guess what?  When I did, the challenge seemed more robust and kept in balance.  The challenge didn't knock me off my feet due to the simple practice of looking after myself as I pursued the next goal.

This is the beauty of advancing along our yoga path -  that we can seek to challenge ourselves and at the same time, look after ourselves in the process.  We learn to know our edge and how it fluctuates.  We begin to give less voice to the concept that how we treat ourselves is in reaction to being good or bad and more to the idea that we deserve to offer ourselves compassion and love as we step into situations that push us.

So the next time you decide to go for the gusto, check in with yourself.  Can you push to your limits without bursting through and creating havoc and imbalance.  Can you be in a strong pose or one that butts up against what you know to be familiar and take a breath of ease.  Can you soften not only excessive muscular tension but your attitude as well.

With practice and a decent dose of awareness, we can both stretch to our full potential from a place of self-love and self-care.  Isn't it time that we nurture ourselves more deeply?  Try it out and see what happens...you might just soar higher than you ever thought imaginable!  

All By Myself

 

 

I am entering my 31st year of teaching to groups...it feels surreal to actually write that, but it's true. Over the years I have taught literally thousands of people in thousands of classes and I've learned that if you are good at what you do, you create a loyal following. What I've also learned is that every few months, I need to step away to keep it fresh for both myself and my students. But, when I announce that I'll be away, some students wonder how they'll continue with their practice. Just because I'm away, doesn't mean you're off the hook for stepping off your mat, so here are some suggestions to keep you on track.

1. Visit another local studio and try out a new teacher.

2. Roll out your mat at home, step on it and let your inner teacher begin to guide you. Follow what your intuition is telling you. You might be surprised at how much you know from the classes you've taken. Just standing in mountain pose and taking a few conscious breaths is a perfect place to start.

3. Take a class on-line. Here are two sites that have many options: My Yoga Online and Yoga Glo.

4. Visit the videos that I have created:
Detox Yoga Flow - Part One
Detox Yoga Flow-Part Two
Standing Warm Up
Sun Salute
Standing Postures/Warriors
Standing Balances
Seated & Savasana

My advice is to trust what you know, listen to your body and try something different. I will back to the mat with you before you know it!

Beneath The Surface

 

As I was teaching a class this past week, a story popped into my head about scuba diving. I asked if anyone in the class was a diver, to which I got a silent response...no, nobody. Not too surprising considering we live in the desert with the nearest ocean being two hours away. What made me think about scuba diving as it relates to yoga, was moving from the gross to the subtle, from the most obvious big thing to the barely-there sign.

When I first began diving, my initial thought as I was about to be jumping into the ocean was, "I wonder if a shark, who hasn't yet found lunch, is waiting for me to splash on in". I'd jump in with a deeply held breath and scout out my aquatic environment, quickly doing double check that all was okay. As a novice diver, I would notice the big stuff...large bits of kelp, fish and patterns on the seabed. But as I became more comfortable over many dives, I started to look at the smaller stuff. I'd take in the textural variations of coral and plant life seeking out who was living in the small crevices and swaying with the current. I found myself looking around for jaws less and less and, if I did see a shark, it didn't send me flying to the surface (with an important decompression stop on the way, of course!).

The experience of scuba diving has so many parallels to our yoga experience. When we first step onto the mat, our focus is drawn to getting into poses...right foot here, left foot there, look up/down, arm extended, breathe easy and so on. But the more time we spend on the mat, the more we are able to look at the subtle elements that can make such a huge impact on our practice.

Have you ever had the experience where you move your weight into a different part of your foot and the pose you're in completely comes to life? Or you notice the pressure change within your abdomen as your head moves lower than your heart and your breathing alters?

Instead of looking for the big "ta-da" of what a pose looks like, we evolve in our practice to get a sense of what the pose feels like. In a way, we become more comfortable (even if it's challenging) with the gross elements and are therefore able to enjoy the sweetness of subtlety.

The beauty of the whole thing is that it all co-exists within the same experience. Just as the tiny seahorse hangs out with the Great White. One big happy family enjoying the ebb and flow, both above and below the surface.

Out With The Old, In With The...wait a minute!

The other day I had a strong insight as we've just stepped over the threshold and into a new year. I was at a meeting and someone was describing a session that they were offering which would "get rid of all the old stuff from 2012 and bring in new stuff for 2013". I hope I didn't overtly react with an obvious recoil, but that's what my unfiltered reaction was...to pull back from the idea of out with the old and in with the new.

As I sat in reflection for what has transpired over the past twelve months, I'm nothing short of amazed. SO many good things happened. I traveled, I taught, I learned, I was challenged and I raised almost $28,000! "Wow", I thought, "I've had a great year." Sure, at times I wondered what lurked in the shadows, but it was truly a year that possessed manifestation. So, why would I want to get rid of the old when I learned so much? Quite frankly, I don't.

Instead, I want to honor what has evolved and acknowledge how it came about. Often, we are ready to let go of things before their time, thinking that the grass might be greener if we do. Take a moment to consider ONE thing that you've added into your life this past year that has made it unquestionably better. That one thing began as an inclination that something needed to change and you stepped onto a path of creating that change. And now...here you are in the present moment with what now seems to be quite a normal part of your life, although it didn't begin that way.

I'm all for living in the present moment and practice it daily. But I also recognize how our past is a magnificent teacher. If we're paying attention to our actions and how they echo firstly within and then beyond us, we begin to become better attuned to what is truly working. It's a dynamic process that will forever be unfolding, yet I hope that with acknowledging what's working that I get more efficient at finding out what's worth keeping and what is not.

This past year was a pivotal one for me. I remember having a conversation with a friend in Australia who said, "Jaynie, it seems like it's all coming together and that life is going really well". I replied, "Yes, I can actually say that what I was always searching for...for what was next, is here. And I think it's called manifestation". I had never said that before, but truly had an opportunity to feel what coming to fruition really meant.

So what you've been working on is in process. It's in the loop of having been recognized and, if given the right nourishment, will blossom into what you've been thinking about.

Go ahead. See what you planted in 2012. Now, it's time to manifest!