I have to say, I spent a couple of hours online this evening that turned out to be one of the MOST entertaining times I have ever had on the internet.
Some of you guys may be familiar with Mary Jarvis (a senior Bikram teacher) and her studio, Global Yoga in San Francisco. I've never studied with Mary yet, but I have a lot of teacher friends who have trained with her and speak very highly of her, so her class is definitely on my wish-list of things to do! (I'm hoping to catch her in December when Mei and I go on our California yoga road trip.) Anyway, one of the things that her studio is known for (besides training yoga champions) is doing the occasional yoga marathon. And that's "marathon" as in 7 or 8 classes in ONE day. (Holy cow. Just when you thought that 7 or 8 classes in a WEEK was a lot...)
Today, one of Mary's students, Charlene, did a "Global Yoga Marathon" of 8 consecutive classes today to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I thought this was pretty damn impressive, and donated 10 bucks to her cause (even though I've never met her)! Her fundraising page is right here, in case you want to do the same. But anyway, they took things a step further today with a new twist: all 8 classes were online in a live webcast!
I tuned in from my desk at my office for the last couple of classes, at 4:30 and 6:30pm. Charlene was still going strong after the first five classes, along with a visiting teacher who had joined her in her marathon. Pretty cool! It made me wonder if I could do that, too. Scratch that - I'm pretty sure I COULD do it if I made up my mind, and maybe one of these days I will give it a go, just for fun.
It was so interesting to watch an actual class going on. I've really never seen that before! It's not like you can look around and check out other people while you're doing your own practice. (Well, occasionally I peek, like if there's a cute boy behind me, but that's not the same as watching a class from the comfort of your room-temperature desk!) It's fascinating to see how the different bodies function and respond, and I could watch it all day.
There was a live chat going on alongside the feed (which I logged onto as thedancingj, of course), and that was infinitely entertaining during the 4:30 class, because the teacher kept going over to a monitor somewhere in the room and reading the live chat comments to the class! So all of us in the chat room were basically cheering/heckling the class and its teacher, and seeing the responses in real time. One of the yogis in the chat room was a global yoga student who knew a lot of the people in the room, so he'd be like, "hey, Natalie (or someone) looks great!" and I'd be like "which one is Natalie?" and then suddenly the teacher would be like, "Natalie, they're talking about you, give them a wave!" It was totally surreal to be sitting at a computer, sending in comments to a guy who was in the MIDDLE of teaching a class, and watching him respond! I don't even remember what I wrote, but a couple of times he told his class, "the dancing J says thus-and-so..." Then he decided that we were creeping him out. It creeped me out a little, too! Am I a human, or a virtual reality robot?? Started to feel like a cyborg!
And then (as if there weren't enough modes of communication going on already), I dropped Mary a note on facebook to say how much I was digging the webcam. She wrote me write back and said she'd tell Chadd (the teacher) that I was one of the people in the chat. I told her, "well, I don't think he knows who I am, but you could show him my facebook page or something... !"
After the 4:30 class ended, the students started coming in for the 6:30, and Chadd was setting up over by the camera. He looked in the camera's general direction and said, "Hey Dancing J, Mary showed me your pictures! Very lovely!" I typed back, "Wow, thank you very much!!" It made me feel less like a cyborg.
Then Mary taught the 6:30 class, so I got to listen to her teaching! It was pretty interesting, especially since I was listening but not doing. There is a world of difference between listening to someone's words while they move your body versus listening to someone's words while you sit on your butt! Hah! But she said a lot of great things that I really appreciated. Some were technical things, like for example: "whatever you do, DO NOT lift your hands off the floor in cobra!" and some were life-related, like: "I am begging you, stop getting on the scale every day, those numbers don't matter." I absolutely agreed with both of those statements! She doesn't teach the regular dialogue, but her technical knowledge was rock solid. Plenty of other interesting ideas and catchy phrases, like "prana, not protein!!" I wish I could remember more of the things that she said... my tape-recorder memory is operating a little bit below par today, I guess, and anyway nothing is a substitute for a live class!
Speaking of which, better get my butt to bed so I can DO a class in the morning! I know I've been kinda quiet lately, mainly because October and November of this year are the times when I get my butt kicked by school, but stay tuned. I'm still out here. :)
| \
| \
|--\O___
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L It's a virtual standing bow!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Scenes from parallel lives
I think that you are always going to be in the right place at the right time.
But you can never know where you would have ended up if you had taken a different fork in the road, and it's always kind of interesting to think about. What would have been gained, what would have been lost, and what was inevitably going to happen no matter what choices you made? Here are some things that I might have done, but didn't...
September, 2007
My friend Jackie is going to teacher training in Hawaii. She tells me I need to come with her. Instead of staying home, saving money, and applying to grad schools, I say "what the hell," and sign up. I've only just recently returned to Bikram yoga after quitting ballet, but my studio owners love me and think I have potential. They give me a 2 week crash course in dialogue before putting me on the plane. It's awesome. I come home after training, go back part-time to the restaurant job that I hate, teach full time in downtown Boston for a while. Two years later - who knows??
(Instead I stayed in Boston, did my first 30 day challenge, did my first yoga competition, got to know my teachers, got to know the other students, and found a new community right where I was.)
March, 2008
After getting into grad school in January, I decide to seize the opportunity and go to teacher training before starting school again. I can do it ALL. I spend all of my savings and buy a plane ticket to Acapulco. It's awesome. Just a couple months after graduating, I leave my support system and move cross-country, flat broke, to start grad school. I get to my new yoga studio as a brand new baby Bikram teacher and no one helps me with dialogue. I'm a new grad student, a new yoga teacher, and a new Californian all at once. It's a bit much.
(Instead I finished paying my dues in the service industry. I came home from work at midnight every night and read Jen's daily TT blog update while eating EasyMac for dinner. I saved up enough money to buy a car, take a cross-country road trip, furnish a new apartment, and eventually go to advanced seminar. I met my yoga mentor and spent time with her every week for 6 months. I learned SO much of what I know now from that time period.)
September, 2008
I've deferred grad school for a year so I can go to the Acapulco training. I am so ready. Four other girls from my studio whose names all start with J are at the training. I am the 5th J. It's awesome. I come back and teach 15 classes a week at all studios around Boston. I get great mentoring and feedback from all the studio owners, and start to get the hang of this teaching thing. I realize that this is an exhausting way to make a living, and I'm a little bit relieved to start school the next fall and do something besides yoga. I don't get to research LEDs like I wanted to because the research group is full and there's less funding in 2009 than there was in 2008.
(Instead, I had the best week of my life when I drove from Boston to LA with my best friend. I had a shitty fall and was homesick all the time. I got exactly the research job that I wanted, but it wasn't that thrilling. I got to meet Bikram and Emmy in LA. I competed at championships in LA and met a whole new group of cool yoga people. I learned how to be a Bikram yogi outside of my safe little bubble.)
(If there is one that I regret missing, it's this one.)
April, 2009
I drop out of grad school after the first 6 months, pack up the car, take out a huge credit card loan, and go to teacher training in Palm Springs. My family is horrified. Except for my two closest friends, I never speak to anyone from UC Santa Barbara again. I'm roommates with one of my friends from New England. It's awesome. After training, I keep on driving east until I get back to Boston. I have job offers from at least 5 different studios in Massachusetts. One of the studio owners lets me stay at her house. I get to teach for my mentor. I get to teach as many classes as I can handle, and then some. I love what I'm doing, but it's a little hard to justify sometimes. I never go back to engineering.
(Instead, I decided to wait things out with academia a little longer. I got a new research supervisor and things turned the corner a bit. I started to enjoy my new home. I started writing. I went from Zen-like acceptance to total impatience and back again. But I didn't renew my housing lease, either.)
October, 2009
I decide that a year of grad school is enough. I follow through on the plans that I made during the first weekend of February. I pack my car and drive to Vegas. I have to say goodbye to a lot of people. I still can't decide whether to teach in Cali for a while or hightail it back to New England. I don't know if I'm done here yet. I stay with Michelle before training and I'm in posture clinics with Mei. I check into the Las Vegas Hilton today. It's awesome. I don't know what happens next.
(Instead, I end up finding a beautiful new house and putting down a couple more roots. My sister moves out to the west coast and stays with me for the year. I go out dancing on Fridays, I meet new people, I have friends over for dinner every Monday. I get a great new research topic, which I have yet to follow through on, but I want to, really. I bring new teachers into the yoga studio. I keep studying, communicating, learning, figuring out my way. I have a good life, but it's not quite complete yet. I don't know what happens next.)
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need...
(Sometimes the old themes are best....)
But you can never know where you would have ended up if you had taken a different fork in the road, and it's always kind of interesting to think about. What would have been gained, what would have been lost, and what was inevitably going to happen no matter what choices you made? Here are some things that I might have done, but didn't...
September, 2007
My friend Jackie is going to teacher training in Hawaii. She tells me I need to come with her. Instead of staying home, saving money, and applying to grad schools, I say "what the hell," and sign up. I've only just recently returned to Bikram yoga after quitting ballet, but my studio owners love me and think I have potential. They give me a 2 week crash course in dialogue before putting me on the plane. It's awesome. I come home after training, go back part-time to the restaurant job that I hate, teach full time in downtown Boston for a while. Two years later - who knows??
(Instead I stayed in Boston, did my first 30 day challenge, did my first yoga competition, got to know my teachers, got to know the other students, and found a new community right where I was.)
March, 2008
After getting into grad school in January, I decide to seize the opportunity and go to teacher training before starting school again. I can do it ALL. I spend all of my savings and buy a plane ticket to Acapulco. It's awesome. Just a couple months after graduating, I leave my support system and move cross-country, flat broke, to start grad school. I get to my new yoga studio as a brand new baby Bikram teacher and no one helps me with dialogue. I'm a new grad student, a new yoga teacher, and a new Californian all at once. It's a bit much.
(Instead I finished paying my dues in the service industry. I came home from work at midnight every night and read Jen's daily TT blog update while eating EasyMac for dinner. I saved up enough money to buy a car, take a cross-country road trip, furnish a new apartment, and eventually go to advanced seminar. I met my yoga mentor and spent time with her every week for 6 months. I learned SO much of what I know now from that time period.)
September, 2008
I've deferred grad school for a year so I can go to the Acapulco training. I am so ready. Four other girls from my studio whose names all start with J are at the training. I am the 5th J. It's awesome. I come back and teach 15 classes a week at all studios around Boston. I get great mentoring and feedback from all the studio owners, and start to get the hang of this teaching thing. I realize that this is an exhausting way to make a living, and I'm a little bit relieved to start school the next fall and do something besides yoga. I don't get to research LEDs like I wanted to because the research group is full and there's less funding in 2009 than there was in 2008.
(Instead, I had the best week of my life when I drove from Boston to LA with my best friend. I had a shitty fall and was homesick all the time. I got exactly the research job that I wanted, but it wasn't that thrilling. I got to meet Bikram and Emmy in LA. I competed at championships in LA and met a whole new group of cool yoga people. I learned how to be a Bikram yogi outside of my safe little bubble.)
(If there is one that I regret missing, it's this one.)
April, 2009
I drop out of grad school after the first 6 months, pack up the car, take out a huge credit card loan, and go to teacher training in Palm Springs. My family is horrified. Except for my two closest friends, I never speak to anyone from UC Santa Barbara again. I'm roommates with one of my friends from New England. It's awesome. After training, I keep on driving east until I get back to Boston. I have job offers from at least 5 different studios in Massachusetts. One of the studio owners lets me stay at her house. I get to teach for my mentor. I get to teach as many classes as I can handle, and then some. I love what I'm doing, but it's a little hard to justify sometimes. I never go back to engineering.
(Instead, I decided to wait things out with academia a little longer. I got a new research supervisor and things turned the corner a bit. I started to enjoy my new home. I started writing. I went from Zen-like acceptance to total impatience and back again. But I didn't renew my housing lease, either.)
October, 2009
I decide that a year of grad school is enough. I follow through on the plans that I made during the first weekend of February. I pack my car and drive to Vegas. I have to say goodbye to a lot of people. I still can't decide whether to teach in Cali for a while or hightail it back to New England. I don't know if I'm done here yet. I stay with Michelle before training and I'm in posture clinics with Mei. I check into the Las Vegas Hilton today. It's awesome. I don't know what happens next.
(Instead, I end up finding a beautiful new house and putting down a couple more roots. My sister moves out to the west coast and stays with me for the year. I go out dancing on Fridays, I meet new people, I have friends over for dinner every Monday. I get a great new research topic, which I have yet to follow through on, but I want to, really. I bring new teachers into the yoga studio. I keep studying, communicating, learning, figuring out my way. I have a good life, but it's not quite complete yet. I don't know what happens next.)
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes
You just might find
You get what you need...
(Sometimes the old themes are best....)
Thursday, October 1, 2009
That's just how we roll...
I have made an observation.
Whenever I go out with friends who do Bikram yoga, there is an extremely high probability that at LEAST one person will end up demonstrating standing head to knee in jeans outside a bar before the night is out.
Last night that person was me. I was designated driver, so I was not drunk, and I was trying to make a very important technical point!!!
I was out last night with my roommate and a couple of new girl friends who I've met through yoga. One of the girls had just finished her first 30-day challenge, and she seriously powered through it - she missed 5 or 6 days in the middle because she got sick, and ended up doing 4 doubles in 5 days in the last week. Teacher-training style!! Clearly, I had to buy this girl a Guinness. We went to this really chill lounge on the outskirts of town that played Beatles music and gave you fresh popped popcorn with your beer. Played 4 rounds of pool, told stories, talked yoga, all wonderful. For some reason, once we stepped out of the bar (with the intention of going home), we REALLY got into the shop talk and couldn't shut ourselves up until we realized it was 1am on a weeknight.
The funniest moment was when one friend was trying to describe the problem she has in toe stand, and ended up just doing the posture on the curb in her jeans. This feat impressed the HECK out of a group of 4 tipsy girls who were passing by. They were pretty effusive with their compliments! "Some kinda crazy gymnastics shit!!" "In jeans!!"
Yep. Yoga dorks. Sometimes the yoga, it just... happens. That's just how we roll....
Whenever I go out with friends who do Bikram yoga, there is an extremely high probability that at LEAST one person will end up demonstrating standing head to knee in jeans outside a bar before the night is out.
Last night that person was me. I was designated driver, so I was not drunk, and I was trying to make a very important technical point!!!
I was out last night with my roommate and a couple of new girl friends who I've met through yoga. One of the girls had just finished her first 30-day challenge, and she seriously powered through it - she missed 5 or 6 days in the middle because she got sick, and ended up doing 4 doubles in 5 days in the last week. Teacher-training style!! Clearly, I had to buy this girl a Guinness. We went to this really chill lounge on the outskirts of town that played Beatles music and gave you fresh popped popcorn with your beer. Played 4 rounds of pool, told stories, talked yoga, all wonderful. For some reason, once we stepped out of the bar (with the intention of going home), we REALLY got into the shop talk and couldn't shut ourselves up until we realized it was 1am on a weeknight.
The funniest moment was when one friend was trying to describe the problem she has in toe stand, and ended up just doing the posture on the curb in her jeans. This feat impressed the HECK out of a group of 4 tipsy girls who were passing by. They were pretty effusive with their compliments! "Some kinda crazy gymnastics shit!!" "In jeans!!"
Yep. Yoga dorks. Sometimes the yoga, it just... happens. That's just how we roll....
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Love letters to everyone
"You simply give... you don't be concerned about the address... you simply go on sending the love letters... Somebody will receive it somewhere...and the more you go sharing... the more goes on entering in you from unknown sources..." ~ Osho
I saw this quote posted by a lovely yogini this weekend, and it's been bouncing around in my head for the last couple of days. Love letters to no one. Love letters to everyone.
There are a few literal interpretations that come to mind. The first one I thought of (for a few different reasons) is writing. Any time you write something in a public forum, you're sending out a bit of yourself, and you don't know where it's going to end up. But you keep sending anyways. And every now and then (as happened to me a couple days ago), you get a crystal-clear confirmation that yes, you are coming through loud and clear. Somebody receives it somewhere.
I also thought of our Bikram teachers, who stand in front of a room of people every day - sometimes a room of familiar faces, sometimes a room of strangers - and give us these same instructions, day in and day out, in the belief that something they say will always get through to someone, sooner or later, even if they never know who or when or how. You simply give. One of my teachers once said, "It's like ringing a doorbell. You know someone's home, but maybe they're asleep. You just keep ringing that doorbell until something happens." They're not doing it for themselves. They're doing it for us.
I also thought of our yoga practice. Sometimes when I practice, I can feel this amazing energy pouring out of me, and it doesn't matter where it goes. I just send it out. Maybe sometimes another student gets it, maybe the teacher gets it, maybe it goes to a friend of mine who is thousands of miles away. I'm not concerned about the address.
But most of all, I though of a change that came over me after I'd been practicing Bikram yoga for a while. I remember that I used to go through life feeling separate from other people. (No more or less separate than I imagine everyone else feels.) I would walk through the city feeling negatively towards the strangers around me - feeling impatience, judgment, mistrust, annoyance, suspicion, or just indifference. And then, yoga. And then, at some point, a switch flipped. I found myself walking through the city after yoga practice feeling this overwhelming affection, gentleness, and compassion for all the strangers around me. Towards absolutely everyone. It would last throughout the day. Then throughout the week, the month, the year. Not always lit up like a beacon - those bursts are much more rare - but burning steadily, quietly, like a pilot light underneath everything, always ready to burst into full flame.
This is something so inexplicable to me that I rarely bring it up in detail. But I was speaking with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago, a Bikram teacher, and she described an experience that absolutely was identical to mine. And as strange as this (still) is, there's only one word that we could find in our vocabulary to describe the emotion.
Love.
For everyone.
You simply go on sending the love letters. And the more you go on sharing, the more goes on entering in you from unknown sources.
~~~
Note: The person who spoke those words, Osho, is a very interesting figure whom I'd never heard of before. I read his Wikipedia page and it sounds like he had one heck of a life. I don't know enough about him to pass judgment one way or another, but the affection for fancy cars definitely reminded me of another crazy Indian who we all know and love...
Friday, September 25, 2009
Correlations
(This makes me laugh EVERY time.)
So with that as a disclaimer, here are some correlations that I have noticed between things that happen inside the yoga room and outside the yoga room. (Some of these are less profound than others.)
I might have a not-so-good class after:
I wake up at 8am, practice at noon, and having nothing to eat in that time frame except grapefruit juice and cheddar cheese flavored Chex Mix. (That one is painfully fresh in my memory.)
I have had a really unproductive day or week of research.
I stay up really late for no apparent reason.
I don't see the sun for a long time.
I spend all day in lab and get nothing done.
The weather gets warm and I'm not ready for it.
I have a great class the day before and become overconfident.
I have a terrible class the day before and totally lose confidence.
I might have a ROCK STAR class after:
I go to Staples, buy a new file folder, and organize my life! (I did this yesterday and had a KILLER class last night.)
I have lots of good meetings at work that make me feel productive and optimistic about my research.
I spend all day in lab and get SOMETHING done.
I talk to someone else about yoga and get them excited about it. (Always makes me more excited, too.)
I stay up really late seeing a new band or looking at the stars and having fun with friends.
The weather gets warm and I drink tons of nice juices and water so I am TOTALLY ready for it.
I have a lousy class the day before and decide to overcome it.
I have a rock star class the day before and decide that today will be even better!
~~~~~~~
The main thing that I notice as I try to write this list is that it's not so much the events in my day that determine my state of mind. It's my response to those events that always makes the difference! Or to quote Gandalf from Lord of the Rings (omg GEEK!!!): "[The time you live in] is not for you to decide. All that you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you." Very nice, I love Tolkein. Now I'd better go and make the most of the end of my week so I can have a great yoga class tonight! Maybe I can get ahead of the curve before next week... that'd be great....
What about you guys? Any surprising life-to-yoga correlations that you've noticed? (The yoga-to-life correlations will have to be the subject of a WHOLE other post. Or book.)
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Never apologize, never explain!
"Never apologize, never explain. It's not a bad two-rule maxim for life, all things considered, but it's not very helpful when it comes to writing afterwords for books. After all, the only reason people read afterwords is for some kind of explanation for what they've read, if they haven't understood it, or for some kind of apology, if they have." - Neil Gaiman
I am currently in the process of missing (or rather skipping) my last opportunity to go to a Bikram class today. (In the middle of a 30/60 day thingie, no less.) Instead, I am sitting on my couch digesting the guacamole, cheese, and chips that I decided to eat about an hour ago. I was hungry, they were leftovers, and they were delicious. But you know what? Never apologize, never explain!! I am not going to apologize for this!! (Though technically, I guess I did just explain it. Clearly, I am not taking myself literally.)
I think a lot of us have this knee-jerk need to explain or apologize for our "bad classes." I've certainly done it plenty of times, sidling up to the desk after a wobbly class and dropping a comment about dehydration or sleep deprivation or burritos. But why? I've never had a teacher respond with, "Oh good, thanks for apologizing, cause I was really annoyed about that part when you fell out of standing bow." Our teachers don't mind that we have "bad days." They understand it, they expect it, and a lot of the time... honestly, they don't even notice it. The world doesn't revolve around me. There are plenty of other people in the room to draw the teacher's attention, and from the outside, most "bad days" look pretty similar to the normal ones. So the apology isn't REALLY for the teacher's benefit, is it? So why DO we have the impulse to say these things? Misplaced guilt over our imperfections, over our own humanity...?
This yoga, with the hard work and sweat and intensity, can feel like an atonement sometimes. We go in there and sweat out our sins - the foods, the booze, the sleepless nights, the emotional baggage - right?
The thing is, I don't really want to atone. I'd rather just own the things that I do and the choices that I make, even when they are stupid or silly. Especially then! Because none of us can be perfect. That's not even an appropriate goal, at the end of the day. All we can be is ourselves - struggling, sweating, trying, standing up, falling down, fucking it up, putting it back together, trying again. Human. So be human. Unapologetically.
My friend reminded me of a lovely line from my favorite book this weekend: "You have to do the pose wrong a thousand times before you can do it right once." I like this, because reminds me that we are doing the right thing by being imperfect. The only way to "get it right" is by making a hundred, a thousand, even a million mistakes first. Never feel badly about that! Just accept it, appreciate it, and keep on keeping on.
DISCLAIMER: DO, of course, remember to mention something that might be relevant, like an injury or surgery, to your teacher before class... help them to help you!!
I am currently in the process of missing (or rather skipping) my last opportunity to go to a Bikram class today. (In the middle of a 30/60 day thingie, no less.) Instead, I am sitting on my couch digesting the guacamole, cheese, and chips that I decided to eat about an hour ago. I was hungry, they were leftovers, and they were delicious. But you know what? Never apologize, never explain!! I am not going to apologize for this!! (Though technically, I guess I did just explain it. Clearly, I am not taking myself literally.)
I think a lot of us have this knee-jerk need to explain or apologize for our "bad classes." I've certainly done it plenty of times, sidling up to the desk after a wobbly class and dropping a comment about dehydration or sleep deprivation or burritos. But why? I've never had a teacher respond with, "Oh good, thanks for apologizing, cause I was really annoyed about that part when you fell out of standing bow." Our teachers don't mind that we have "bad days." They understand it, they expect it, and a lot of the time... honestly, they don't even notice it. The world doesn't revolve around me. There are plenty of other people in the room to draw the teacher's attention, and from the outside, most "bad days" look pretty similar to the normal ones. So the apology isn't REALLY for the teacher's benefit, is it? So why DO we have the impulse to say these things? Misplaced guilt over our imperfections, over our own humanity...?
This yoga, with the hard work and sweat and intensity, can feel like an atonement sometimes. We go in there and sweat out our sins - the foods, the booze, the sleepless nights, the emotional baggage - right?
The thing is, I don't really want to atone. I'd rather just own the things that I do and the choices that I make, even when they are stupid or silly. Especially then! Because none of us can be perfect. That's not even an appropriate goal, at the end of the day. All we can be is ourselves - struggling, sweating, trying, standing up, falling down, fucking it up, putting it back together, trying again. Human. So be human. Unapologetically.
My friend reminded me of a lovely line from my favorite book this weekend: "You have to do the pose wrong a thousand times before you can do it right once." I like this, because reminds me that we are doing the right thing by being imperfect. The only way to "get it right" is by making a hundred, a thousand, even a million mistakes first. Never feel badly about that! Just accept it, appreciate it, and keep on keeping on.
DISCLAIMER: DO, of course, remember to mention something that might be relevant, like an injury or surgery, to your teacher before class... help them to help you!!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Give and Take (or The Law of Increasing Returns)
Wow, I haven't written in a week - that was a long time for me! I will not apologize for this, because I keep thinking of the saying "never apologize, never explain" and I think there's something to it! But more on that later. I really did miss writing, though!!
I've had a house guest all weekend - another visiting teacher from LA - and it's been absolutely wonderful to have her here. She came in on Friday evening and I think we must have spent hours that first night just talking yoga. She taught the double at my studio yesterday morning (I took ONE of the classes) and then we spent the afternoon exploring downtown Santa Barbara. Then I made an avocado-kale salad for dinner and we hung out on the couch with my roomies and watched Dirty Dancing and Mask of Zorro. It was great.
I've got her reading "How Yoga Works" (which she can't put down), and we had such GREAT conversations about Bikram yoga - the teaching of it, the practice of it, the dialogue, the people, everything. I have so many ideas and beliefs bouncing around in my head that it is always awesome when I get a chance to just TALK. But here's the cool thing. My friend thinks that I am pretty smart and she loved the stuff that I had to say. So that made her get really energized again about teaching and yoga and dialogue and all of it. And as soon as she got this energy from me, I got WAY more energy from her! It was this perfect upward spiral. The more I gave to her, the more I got back for myself, so I just kept giving and offering as much as possible, and she kept taking it and passing it back to me, and it made me feel incredible.
One of the huge ideas in the beginning of that book (How Yoga Works) is that you can't just do your yoga practice for yourself. That's not powerful enough. What really will make it stick is if you do it for someone else. Literally. You do it so that you can be there for your family, so that you can be a better friend, so that you can do better at your job (assuming your job is also something that benefits the rest of the world)... and most of all, you do the yoga and try to bring yourself to some higher state so that other people can follow where you have gone.
I took my friend's class again this morning (which was awesome) and then we practiced together before she drove back down to LA, just the two of us going through and working on our postures, and I don't know if I've ever experienced that "give and take" principle so tangibly before. It was actually physical. This friend is working on a lot of the same things that I used to struggle with, so I was able to share quite a lot with her, and it was a pure joy. And even though I was focused on her instead of myself, I couldn't help notice that my own postures were significantly better than I expected them to be. My body was SO there for me. I did a couple of totally new things. And there was no reason or explanation for my own progress (my practice has been a bit of a wreck recently) - except for this. You get whatever you give. Maybe it's clique, maybe it's a platitude... but isn't it also TRUE? Maybe this is how the world really works. I'm getting more convinced all the time...
I've had a house guest all weekend - another visiting teacher from LA - and it's been absolutely wonderful to have her here. She came in on Friday evening and I think we must have spent hours that first night just talking yoga. She taught the double at my studio yesterday morning (I took ONE of the classes) and then we spent the afternoon exploring downtown Santa Barbara. Then I made an avocado-kale salad for dinner and we hung out on the couch with my roomies and watched Dirty Dancing and Mask of Zorro. It was great.
I've got her reading "How Yoga Works" (which she can't put down), and we had such GREAT conversations about Bikram yoga - the teaching of it, the practice of it, the dialogue, the people, everything. I have so many ideas and beliefs bouncing around in my head that it is always awesome when I get a chance to just TALK. But here's the cool thing. My friend thinks that I am pretty smart and she loved the stuff that I had to say. So that made her get really energized again about teaching and yoga and dialogue and all of it. And as soon as she got this energy from me, I got WAY more energy from her! It was this perfect upward spiral. The more I gave to her, the more I got back for myself, so I just kept giving and offering as much as possible, and she kept taking it and passing it back to me, and it made me feel incredible.
One of the huge ideas in the beginning of that book (How Yoga Works) is that you can't just do your yoga practice for yourself. That's not powerful enough. What really will make it stick is if you do it for someone else. Literally. You do it so that you can be there for your family, so that you can be a better friend, so that you can do better at your job (assuming your job is also something that benefits the rest of the world)... and most of all, you do the yoga and try to bring yourself to some higher state so that other people can follow where you have gone.
I took my friend's class again this morning (which was awesome) and then we practiced together before she drove back down to LA, just the two of us going through and working on our postures, and I don't know if I've ever experienced that "give and take" principle so tangibly before. It was actually physical. This friend is working on a lot of the same things that I used to struggle with, so I was able to share quite a lot with her, and it was a pure joy. And even though I was focused on her instead of myself, I couldn't help notice that my own postures were significantly better than I expected them to be. My body was SO there for me. I did a couple of totally new things. And there was no reason or explanation for my own progress (my practice has been a bit of a wreck recently) - except for this. You get whatever you give. Maybe it's clique, maybe it's a platitude... but isn't it also TRUE? Maybe this is how the world really works. I'm getting more convinced all the time...
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