Teaching Yoga: Opening a Path for Everybody

There is a responsibility in teaching yoga that goes beyond my own practice. It all boils down to creating a space where seekers seek, athletes work out, the ill heal, the lost find company and a shape is given to that for all of them. People respond to different types of stimulation, are attracted to varying degrees of intensity, and definitely have vastly different amounts of time to give to a yoga practice. For some, it must fit into that one hour slot in a work day, or that open time on a weekend or evening, and for others everything shapes itself around practice. Some can commit to a weekly practice, others to daily and others barely commit, using yoga as an occasional activity. Some come looking for their physical limits, others bring their physically limited bodies in search of an ethereal self.

I've been to such a range of classes as a student that I cannot help but wonder about communicating the essentials, giving the raw ingredients that can be used in so many ways. Surely discipline and physical prowess were a part of the ancient practices when men of contortionist skill displayed their asana ability to spur a desire for the practice and a healthy dose of amazement at what that practice could make of a human body.  But there was reverence also for the aesthetes, who suffered in silent isolation in the mountains waiting for the divine insights, and the ecstatics who cried out for the beloved in all things. Through all these avenues, the ego was seen and the mind's grip loosened from the attachments that limit perception, allowing escape from the I-me-mine framework that ruins so much of life. Possibilities opened on all these paths, and the suffering of grasping and aversion could be understood and reduced.

It is no surprise that there are students who must be pushed to their physical limits in order to feel their deepest awareness of self judgment and attachment. I'm not sure that there is enough encouragement to cultivate that level of awareness in some of those classes where the body is used to create the endorphin high that takes one out on the trip of bliss in Savasana.  Certainly there are those who can use their bodies to build strength and skill, learn trust in the breath, and push their practice into the unknown through these challenging asana classes. There are also those whose seeking will not take their physical practice to that level, perhaps living in bodies that can improve in health and integration, but will not transform into that level of athleticism. The practice does not require an able body, nor even a brilliantly trained mind. The practice only demands willingness and at a certain point, commitment. Yoga is not a weight loss program nor a reversal of aging elixir. Yoga is not a cure-all, nor a religion. But my goodness yoga is definitely an opportunity to broaden perspectives and live a fuller life as the person you actually are, encouraging each person to more fully inhabit the body they have and develop the mind they brought with them.

So as a yoga teacher I feel it is my responsibility to offer from the heart of the principles as I have come to know them. My own practice being one of open inquiry, rather than a structured sequence of asana, within which the subtleties are explored, that is what I tend to teach. I started yoga in my late 40s, without an athlete's or dancer's training. My first experiences brought me to my knees (child's pose, actually) because of the insights that arose during those early practices, the profound support I felt for being myself that saturated the practice, and the absence of dictates that pushed me into corners from which I could not see or experience for myself. There was no authority other than my own intelligences: my mind, my heart, my sensations, the space between my inhale and my exhale.

In this way I think that the path remains open to everybody: those who must sweat it out with fast paced and demanding physical asana sequences, those for whom it is the ancient texts that beckon with pearls and stars of insight, those for whom the seeking of the quiet place on the cushion, the mat and in the mind are the glimmers of truth between the asana, and those for whom the sound of breath around them is the deepest comfort, having a place to go where someone will see them with compassionate care, and hold them equal to the task of being who they are.

The classes that I teach are not all things to all students. I've been subbing classes lately and I know that I am offering a practice, but that it is not the same tempo or temperament as those of the absent teacher. For the students, I believe this is a good thing. The experience of yoga comes in so many forms and running into a substitute teacher can offer a glimmer of that. It is also a beautiful mirror to use to see their own practice, get a sense of the expectations they may have brought with them, find a new view of their self judgment, and cultivate awareness in myriad parts of their life experience.  It is exactly the same opportunity for me, as the teacher. Seeing my offering in new ways, sensing my own constraints and expectations, observing the view of my teaching from a new perspective, and growing my own practice as their teacher.

The range of people I teach, from young athletes to centenarians, is my sharpest tool for keeping the path open for everybody. I see my task is just that, stretching my own mental structures, asana practices, and understandings in order to assist others to find the opening to their own path.

Growing Solo: Skills in Class, Explored in Private

Yoga classes are where I learned to see myself through the actual experience of being myself. I felt my resistance to external direction; I recognized deep inner sorrows; I discovered flexibility and habitual patterns. Over time, every bit of this moved off the mat into my daily life, relationships, self definitions.  On a grand scale of patterning I was shifting and changing, but the minutia upon which the patterns all relied was discovered only in my personal practice. Allowing the experiences on the mat to go where they led themselves, taking on the challenges of body and mind that arose from my own body and mind.  Classes will give you the tools for this, but only the personal practice gives you the opportunity.

An example of this might be a reluctance to kick up into handstand with "the other leg." It is one of those moments in private when you face your drive, your judgment, your fear of failure and the pain of that. You can seek out the mechanisms by which the body can actually support the move, rather than throw the body into the panic again and again until it somehow "works." You can deconstruct and reinvent the pattern in the movement, and without a care about the handstand, discover the rising into it. Feeling pain in class in a joint or in a movement, you will quite simply try to avoid it the next time. In private practice you can explore the sources to support safe movement, or to genuinely protect the point in jeopardy.  You can evolve the practice from the foundation into the pose or movement, building the resilience and awareness that bring you fully into the pose rather than aiming for the shape of the asana. Strength and stamina can be built, and the self defined differently.

Meditation practice requires a most intimate connection to solitary practice. In a group of people, meditation puts you directly in touch with your own mind and habits of mind.  The group can support you with community, scheduling, breath around you, and a little pressure to keep your seat out of shame or anxiety.  A group can even offer you material to work with in the form of distraction and dharma themes upon which to focus your thinking.  It is in your own practice where you find the threads with which you have been spinning the stories, and where you can stop that spinning and can observe the threads, and the stories, without having to give over to watching them.

Back to Basics

Everything is part of everything else, but when starting a yoga or meditation practice, it does help to narrow it down a little bit. Keeping some basic ideas in mind can invite a more relaxed attitude as we begin a new journey.

For me, yoga has a simple set of principles to begin: breath, alignment, awareness, kindness, curiosity.

Traditionally, the eight principles of yoga, in plain terms, include our relationships to the world around us (yamas) and to the self (niyamas), alignment (asana), breath (pranayama), concentration (cultivating awareness), withdrawal of the senses (developing non-attachment), meditation (interacting beyond dualistic understanding), and the integration of being beyond a separate self (bliss).

Let's be satisfied with whichever part of all this we can hold in our awareness. Start with the basics:
• paying attention to the breath, when you remember; and return to paying attention to the breath when you realize you have forgotten.
• attend to your alignment -- the way your bones stack to transfer weight to the earth and support your movements; and when you realize you have forgotten about your alignment, simply attend to the effects of that and make adjustments.
• cultivate awareness, allowing your breath to lead you in and out of your sensations, reactions, emotions, and postures. Let your mind help you by focusing one one thing at a time, developing the ability to focus by accepting that the lens slips and requires readjustment.
• be kind when you find you have shifted into remembering, replaying events, hollering at yourself, projecting possibilities, wishing things were different, going over things that take your attention away from right now. Just smile a little at your human nature and cultivate awareness of any pattern that might emerge in your internal ways of operating.
• take an interest, be curious, about how your body works, how your mind works, how your interactions and reactions rise and fall away.

Any and all of this will lead to all the rest of this, without you having to make a list or keep a chart or memorize Sanskrit names or learn physiology. Let the names become generalized, in fact, when you notice that you are drifting out of this moment, name the drift -- "drifting" -- or a bit more specifically "worrying" or "dreaming" -- and come on back to NOW. You can do this on a yoga mat. You can do this right at your desk, this minute. Or brushing your teeth.

May all the hoopla over 2011 simply open the path as you make your way.

Sugar Candy: A Beautiful Practice

When someone compliments me, I know they are making judgments, but it is deeply sweet. Just like sugar candy, we so easily learn to crave that sweetness. Beauty is in the mind, a way of appreciating or noticing some thing or attribute, and that has this sweetness too. Like watching a dancer move through a choreography suited to their nature or the musical score, or when the light at 4pm strikes the tree tops just so, or when the breath carries me through Surya Namasakar (sun salutation) from the inside. It is grace made visible.

When I go to different studios, sometimes teachers come up and actually say to me, "You have a beautiful practice."

The first time it happened it was like the candy, a little shock at the sweetness, and that warm melting feeling that comes with pride and ego growing. Then, like steam dissipating, the little sweet droplets began separating on my tongue and I wondered what does this mean?

It happened again today. Not saying it happens all the time, but I am beginning to find that it is not unusual. And I am finding that I can see the candy as the confection it is, without having to eat it.

My practice is simply me, connecting to the energy that the breath brings me, and trying to hear what the teacher is offering me. I can feel clumsy, funny, and smooth. I can find all kinds of things interesting along the path that another teacher is offering me. Sometimes I rebel against a tone or a sequence or an attitude, but when that happens it becomes my practice too. The practice of watching myself judge myself as somehow mismatched to the moment. That is, of course, impossible, since there is nothing else but that moment and obviously I'm right in it! So it is me chafing at being... which more often than not makes me laugh when I see that it is happening.

Actually, now, today, when it happened again, I saw that it was simply the grace of the breath made visible.

So I looked around and wondered if the teacher also saw beauty in the man standing there fighting with himself about balancing, rather than taking an accommodation for his hamstring situation and letting his body rest in balance. Maybe seeing it in that woman folded in child's pose instead of taking a twisted Ardha Chandrasana balance (standing half moon, with opposite hand down). Or could it be seen in the practice of that dancer in the corner with the incredible lines from fingertips to toes, or that young man who was finding new space in his spine while he tried to relax his forehead. Every one of them was beautiful to me, as they searched their souls for freedom in that moment to let the body twist, rise, extend, stretch, deepen, breathe, and be in a most specific way! Willingly, and with concentration, each one of them was expressing grace as it was in that moment, for them, in that body, on that day.

So next time I see a piece of dark chocolate and crave that sweetness melting in my mouth, I will think of grace, and simply take a piece. There is no need to reject the compliment, nor to make any more of it than its intention of appreciation. I'm learning to leave ego out of it, and just be grateful for the flow of grace.

Not So Special, Just Being Authentic

There is such a temptation to build ego! Even as the yoga practice works to dissolve the dualities, drawing attention to the energy rather than the definitions within which the energy moves... Meditation is walking in the wind, watching the world move in response, feeling it, and even while feeling it, letting the feeling slip out of the sensory realm.

Okay, so meditation can take a person beyond that ego, but the ego still wants in on it. You can feel it, hovering, wanting to get its sticky fingers back into the deliciousness. There's nothing wrong with ego. We need it, definitely, to function properly in the world. But it is not the same as being, it is the separate "self" rather than the universally connected "Self."

Taking a yoga class is a wonderful exercise for me. It is like the way your core feels when you first try to invert into headstand... all wobbly and strangely new. There's a sense of identity, yet an observing identity, and yet still another body of energy that is simple and clear. I have to laugh at the teacher person on the mat who is laughing at the student person on the mat who is laughing at the blissful energy person on the mat who is hovering over the aching knees and softened heart person. All of them are me and yet this does not make me into any thing, or any one in any hierarchy. Each body in the room has this fullness of knowing, not knowing, feeling, perceiving, and witnessing. How wonderful is that?

The fact is that nothing I do on the mat, or off the mat turns me into a pot of gold. I remain a breathing entity wobbling through the moments I get, sometimes lifted off the earth in a blissful state by a gust of wind in the leaves, sometimes slogging in the mud with a shovel made of the heaviest steel. And so it is for everyone, I suspect. We have our separate faces so we can tell better stories, otherwise we might be like bees and all there would be would be a sound of communal buzzing. Actually, some of the most marvelous moments are those when we listen for that very sound among us.

The big part of practice in this regard is to let go of my attachments to putting values on "me." It is not that I am worthless, but that there is no measurable entity when it comes to "being me." It doesn't matter if I can do a particular asana or not, or if it looks just so or not. This way of being without judgment means that I don't feel "special" in any way that elevates me beyond the other human beings (or frogs for that matter) around me in the mud of yoga practice. This helps me really be compassionate towards myself and others. We are all just riding this particular wave, even if we cannot distinguish this wave from any other. The riders who fall into it sooner are no less riders than those who are riding it still.

Beginning Yoga: Isn't So Simple

Yoga is supposed to simplify everything -- isn't it? We practice and feel profound peace, self acceptance and joy. Suddenly our confusions and pain are absorbed into the greater wholeness of the universe and we are just fine being who we are -- isn't that it? Or perhaps it is more like working out at a gym and we just come to do the same things enough times that it gets easier? And once it's easier, we find profound peace, self acceptance and joy and our confusions and pain are absorbed into the greater wholeness of the universe...no?

For so many that first yoga class is a huge up hill struggle with the boulder. Right from the start it's sitting on the mat: what the heck is a "comfortable cross-legged position" with tight hamstrings, low back pain, screaming knees, tight groin muscles and crushed ankle bones ...? Then there's standing in Tadasana (Mountain Pose) otherwise known as standing up straight, right?, only every muscle is quaking or aching and nothing feels normal at all, while the mind is zooming all over the place checking on this and that only to discover that there is no communication at all with the toes or the inner thighs (inner thighs?). Have we really been functional human beings all this time, yet we can hardly sit or stand once we're in a yoga class??

My heart is so full when I teach beginners. It must seem that I take the simplest most natural thing and it turns into a puzzle that cannot be solved. There is never enough brain power to focus on the breathing while melting the center of the heel (center of the heel?) down and lifting the inner arches, while relaxing the shoulders and finding space in the .... well, it could go on and on.

In fact it does go on and on. That is the practice itself: Learning how to train the mind to be attentive, yet let the brain go; learning how to open those pathways of energy in the feet and through the legs so that one really can relax the spine around the muscular effort being made; learning to accept that which is so in this very moment and leave the judgments and know-it-all/know-nothing dualism of the self behind. All this is in fact happening right from the start in a beginning yoga class, just by focusing attention on what is actually being experienced.

The overlay on all of this is that there is no right way or wrong way in it. That's often a revelation. And discovering what makes things happen, what becomes possible, what the mind asks for, what the body says about that, all of this happens constantly on the mat, just as it does off the mat. So it doesn't matter how much yoga a person has already done in their lives (I was recently in a class where the teacher said, "so forget about all the 1,239 times you've 'done' down dog...") it is this particular moment you are using for your investigation of what being you, being human, and just being really is. Notice I did not say, "could be."

So far, it seems to me that nothing in yoga is hypothetical. The ability to be aware simply expands as we let go of the boundaries we have set, consciously or unconsciously. If we clutch at getting there, instead of marvel at being here, we will miss some of the salient features of being here that make all the difference in understanding being. The unfolding nature of asana leads the body into openness by following the breath and accepting and exploring what the bones and muscles can do, that's where the details stop being separate. In the beginning, though, it sure does feel as though the devil is in the details!

I offer my beginning class (or any class) as a safe place for bringing all of this into the moment. We can watch our own mind telling the story of the moment, feel our own feelings opening and closing in response to what we are actually doing or what we think we are doing. There is a sacredness in honoring our own breath and it naturally includes and absorbs everyone else's breath too. The air itself holds out a strangely pervasive and deeply compassionate acceptance of who we are and who everybody else is. The first person to fall out of Vrksasana (tree pose) has the hearts of everyone in the room. Then the laughter comes as we sink to the mat, or the sighs reduce every body to its fullest exhale. Perhaps it is that moment we feel the universal aspect of the "union" that is yoga, and let go of our own details.

Ego & Body: Less Ego, More Breath

Yoga class. Look around. Put your body on the mat, and see if you can get your mind to stay with you there. Every breath, awareness streaks through your body, is it really always saying "me, me, me?" Can we separate out ego in the practice so that the mind can simply be alert and not defining self constantly?

I am experiencing the oddest combinations of this as I attend classes in various Yoga Studios, Capital "Y," Capital "S." I feel very different in my little neighborhood storefront shelter-from-the-storm studio, and definitely in the classes I teach at the medical center and the shelter. This level of visibility is new for me, this witness to the ego during practice. It is a level beyond ego that observes the "me" watching the "me" on the mat. Perhaps it is because I am putting my self in a new and demanding context in which the judgment/assessment of others is more likely to be felt. My breath saves me every time, as each breath flows into my body, taking shape in the asana, somehow the "me" goes out with the exhale. I can literally become a body in space for which some "I" feels such compassion. Sometimes I can shake with love for the form taken, accepting this, and this, and this. It is "me" and "not me." Some part of me is laughing at the part of me that observes me, too. Watching "me" watch "me." Now that is funny!

Where am I when all this is going on? I am drawing my bones more squarely to my foundation, or pressing gently into the earth to find my core rising up, or simply softening whatever body parts I can notice that are clenching and opening the energy to flow more freely.

When I look around, I see ego in the bodies around me, sometimes ego seeps out and the bodies rest quietly in their shapes. Sometimes ego causes suffering, or even celebration. It raises questions for me about why people practice yoga especially in classes. I do think sometimes classes can build reactiveness, strengthen judgment, bolster existing tendencies, and increase attachment to form or goal. For some it will take a particular teacher to shake this up, or it might take a certain amount of practice before something begins to loosen the grip of ego. And it sometimes happens like a stroke of lightening, striking and obliterating what was always there; as though a solid object has simply burnt up and vanished leaving space, open space in its place.

There is no way that I can sit on the yoga mat and not be me. The wild thing is that I can truly be me on the mat and not be attached to any significance or meaning related to that. Lately I'm just flooded with gratitude for the opportunity to be doing and teaching yoga, to be breathing and sharing these moments. It is not a matter of ego if I can do this or that asana. It is not a matter of ego if I can let go or am still grasping. It is not a matter for judgment and self definition whether I do yoga or haul wood. The less I cling to ego on the mat, the more I find peace and joy in the practice.

May I just say that bodies are amazing. We humans have a remarkable vehicle in which to experience life on earth. Phew.

Bring Body & Mind to Class & Find Your Practice

detail Seurat painting, Chicago Art Institute

When a student comes to a class, they sit on the mat, arrange their body, prepare to take directions from the teacher and assume in all good faith that this will be a satisfying yoga practice. There is a sense of relief that someone else will be in charge. There is sometimes a little anxiety, could it even be performance anxiety, about what will be asked and how it will go. Usually there is craving too, desire to feel or be or experience something beyond the day-to-day of work, household, relationships etc. Sometimes it is just yearning for healing that brings the body to the mat.

But what brings the mind to the practice? Why separate out the mind, as though it was the evil twin? We do not need to silence the mind, nor perfect the body in order to deeply explore yoga. It seems to me that we learn though yoga to unify that which is the experience of this life in this body/mind with a greater sense of listening to a larger way of being, tapping into something universal about living.

What if attending class was all about exploring who you are in such a way that it enabled you to continue exploring who you are when you are not in class and feel okay about what you find? That means accepting the anxiety or relief, acknowledging the cravings and desires, allowing the sorrow and the joy to percolate and not judging them as "good" or "bad" nor giving up on what might seem "hard" or taking too much for granted in what comes "easy."

So many students now take yoga for exercise, for a "sense of wellbeing," some for healing, and some for community. Ideally the class is a springboard to making yoga your own practice. Bring your self into the communal setting to share breath, to learn about the exploration in a safe way, and what you take away will be an ongoing support for your own practice.

One thing is for sure: the mind can help the body understand and sustain challenges and openings by focusing attention in specific ways and the body can help the mind let go of judgments and be open to possibilities through alignment and the breath. Yoga is an adventure along a path that combines the body's movements, breathing, alignments, challenges, and attitudes, with the mind's posturing, undulations, shifts, information and inspiration. So where is the heart in all of this? That steadfast organ, pumping away, circulating fresh energy and removing obstacles and toxins? Well, that's not what we think of really, is it? We think of that open warmth and spaciousness, that deep longing and giving, the rising joys and sorrows, the tenderness and fierceness, in essence the compassion of acceptance and gratitude that is shared with other living beings. So applying heart energy becomes part of the yoga practice too, the turning of compassion towards oneself may be the revelation of a class, and turning compassion towards others may transform your life.

I've been taking classes lately that focus on many different variables of the yoga spectrum. It has been mighty interesting from my teacher-viewpoint and my own body/mind assembly. The strongest feeling so far for me has been that all of this experience I am gaining through my own body and mind feeds my yoga practice and my teaching practice. Not a picking and choosing of this and that, or judging this better than or less than, but assimilating the on-the-mat-waiting-for-class experience opens my heart wide to my students, and introduces new elements into my personal practice.

Take your classes out of the studio and into your heart and see what happens!

Even The Sun Rises in Stages

Early morning practices are a wonderful experience of greeting the day with a deeper acceptance of one's self and awareness of a greater landscape of possibilities. As with starting any practice, I also see sun salutations (Surya Namaskar sequences) as offering a wide variety of opportunities. Some practitioners take a specific sequence, some count breaths, some add standing Asanas like Virabhadrasana I or II, (Warrior) or Trkonasana (Triangle), or variations of lunges and twists in Ajanyasana (knee-down lunge) or Utkatasana (chair/fierce pose). Are any of these "right" or "wrong" in a sun salutation? I believe it is only really important if you are practicing a specific style of yoga that requires repetitions of specific alignments through particular Asanas. In either situation - a set flow or with additions - Surya Namaskar is a gradual process that will change your sense of being as you go along.

Beginning a yoga practice starts with the breath, and waking up the awareness. There are so many ways to do this, and all of them are reminders to be fresh to the moment, not leaning on expectations or memories, not judging or causing pain. I teach variations of physical warm ups that draw attention to different parts of being. In my own practice I do much the same, whether I start by sitting or standing, or even flat out on the floor, slowly through Pratapana (warm ups) or jumping in to Vinyasa (Asana flow) like Surya Namaskar.

I take personal practice as a true exploration and believe that sequences are built through understanding of the breath and curiosity about the body as a vehicle for experience of Prana (life energy) and grace. Some mornings I will repeat a series of Asana in a flow many times, sometimes I hold each Asana for many breaths. It may include variations or be the classical sequence. I've read that Surya Namaskar is a fairly recent addition to the pantheon of yoga practices, and that the ancient yogis had no requirement for this particular series. It evolved as a wonderful integration of movements with the breath that serve to open energy channels throughout the body, generate inner heat, strengthen limbs and core, release joint tightness, offer an inversion, and bring the mind into a more devotional state. Whatever my practice, I am building upon who I am, and how I approach, observe and release my own reactiveness. I learn to hear the deeper impulses of energy and fear, and I gain integration of my body and mind to the point when I can sit (or stand, walk, or lay down) in a natural meditational state. The practice helps me open the spaces inside me that encourage a less judgmental way of life, a more generous heart, and even a better humor in the face of darkening clouds on the horizon or right in my face!

I think many people cut short this last meditational phase of personal practice -- seeking physical integration and moving quickly on to other daily tasks, as if the practice is a warm up for the day. In some very real ways, I think practice IS a warm up for the day. Just like the sun rising, the light begins with subtle aspects, gradually spreading and brightening, as more and more of the world around us comes into view, and absorbs the heat. A yoga practice is really the same, and even on a morning thick with clouds, I can still salute the sun, finding its light illuminates the shades of gray above me. So, too, does the sun salutation series open spaces in which to see more clearly which way the practice may lead. One day it could be shoulder openings, another into twists, or strengthening standing postures. Perhaps the breath is crying out for Kapalabhati (Skull Shining Breath) breathing in Setu Bandhasana (Bridge pose) or deeply meditative Nadi Shoduna (Alternate Nostril Breath) in Virasana (Hero's pose).

Attending classes can help with the internal absorption of sequences, and introduce a combination that effectively raises energy, strengthens, calms, or opens awareness of fears or healing effects. Yet again I think of the sun, only by rising does the sun light the world. You will only find your personal practice by taking time to see what turns up in it on any particular day. You can begin with following what you remember from classes, or working with a tape or DVD, but the sooner you can turn off the external directive voices and begin to work from that internal voice, the brighter and more illuminating your practice will be.

Yoga with Music or No Music

When I first started teaching yoga, one of the things that occupied my time and attention was the making of playlists for my classes. The music gave me a sense of time, and could change tempo and mood to help ease, loosen, encourage, soften, and relax. I worried about lyrics and whether the sanskrit would put people off, or if I could use the variety of genres that appeal to me. I had a few classes where the music making gizmo wasn't working, and even a few where the early questions and explanations simply expanded into the class itself without my ever turning the music on.

In my own practice I have used playlists to experience them before I use them in classes, or to provide my practice with exactly the same qualities that they do for a class: Indicating duration of practice, enhancing the level of energy and relaxation, and subtly signaling shifts in meanings.

Yet I thoroughly dissolve into silent practice. I have taken several kinds of classes that use no music, and I am beginning to sense that there is a greater depth of inner focus. The asana practice is a meditation on the breath. It is not simply an instructional pattern of physical postures for which we coordinate our breathing in order to get a greater physical result. The more deeply I investigate silent practice, the more my own practice is drawn in that direction.

When teaching those for whom a personal practice is not yet part of their experience, or for whom the taking of a class is for the purpose of introducing specific aspects of practice, I find the music adds valuable dimensions to the experience. There is another layer of communication taking place through the use of music and this can convey something nonverbal and deeper than the language I use. It also changes the very nature of the spaces in which we share practice, and in some of my classes this is really a magical and important aspect of the time we spend. In the homeless shelter, in all the clinical settings, and even in private spaces, the music in combination with a change in lighting helps students make an immediate and important inner shift towards that inner voice, towards releasing unnecessary effort, towards attention.

I guess this is something that I will keep investigating through my own experience and my students' experiences. I am grateful that my understanding of yoga is not some absolute set of rules, and leaves me deep in exploration of every aspect. It is a new place of self knowledge to find I do not have to have definitive positions on things, nor authority, nor routines in order to be effective and useful.

The Worst or The Best Yoga Class

I just enjoyed a taste of yoga yesterday at Integral Yoga in the West Village, NYC. It was my first time there, and I was offered a free second class if I filled out an evaluation form of my first class. So I did. But as I got to the second side of the form, I was asked to rate the teacher, and in some ways, the teaching. This was funny to me since the experience of a yoga practice is not something I usually rate or judge in terms of "E=Excellent," "G=Good!"

Then today I happened to skim through Elizabeth Gilbert's short article in the recent Yoga Journal relating her discovery that yoga was neither gym class nor religion. She describes the moment when she realizes, suddenly, deeply and somehow permanently that her being is opening and healing through this simple combination of moving the body, stilling the mind and breathing. She mentions that she now takes yoga all over the world, wherever she is, and writes, " And you know what? It doesn't even have to be a good yoga class. Garrison Keillor once said that the worst pumpkin pie he ever ate wasn't that much different from the best pumpkin pie he ever ate, and I feel exactly that way about yoga classes -- that even the sloppiest or most rudimentary studios have provided me with the opportunity for transformation."

This thrilled me, because I, too, have found this to be true. I've come to understand that every teacher is offering a guide and a space within which it is my own breath and prana that emerges. If I chafe against the words being used, or my hip criticizes the sequence introduced, or perhaps my heart fails me as others leap into a place my body dares not go, I can only gain. Surely as I feel the earth below me in savasana, I can open to the possibilities offered to me in any class. Perhaps it is a power yoga class, perhaps it is a meditation and hatha class, but they each open the gates to awareness.

I remember feeling unsure in classes, and even having strong negative reactions to some teachers who did not seem to be on the same wavelength as I wanted to be. It is that "wanting to be" that is illuminated. Yet even with someone shouting and counting breaths, urging me to "do it-push it-hold-it" in ways that felt like a workout and nothing like yoga, it was my own response that I investigated, and my own breath that I used for support and softness. A class can be very quiet and not rev up the engines that burn off the toxins of the day, but that quiet space is where strength of focus can surely be nurtured, and the distracting mind seen fully.

So I rated everything "E" for excellent on my form, smiling at how even that exercise gave me a new look at myself and my yoga practice. I'm not sure when I will make it back for that second class, but I am sure to learn something from it whenever I do go.

Listening to Your Body's Wisdom

Yoga can be adapted to bring benefits to any body. When I first began my practice, every part of me had something to say after each yoga class! I discovered spaces and muscles in them between my ribs that I had just never known before. My legs would shake in standing poses, and my breathing would be slower than that which the teacher was directing. My shoulders were chronically tight. Gradually my body began to find its way into the patterns of breath and movements. After 8 years of experience, my yoga practice always begins with awakening of this deep coordination of breath and muscular activity. My hips stiffen every night, my shoulders need to respond to an exploration of their range of motion before I ask any thing else of them. Though my legs have flexibility, the big hamstrings need to warm up before going for a full forward bend.

The first aspect of a safe and healthy practice is to let the judgments of yourself go. In order to listen to my own body and use it fully as the vehicle for my practice, I have to be willing to notice its actual condition without the overlay of pre-set ideas about myself. My students quickly discover that it is their own knee and hamstring combination that will tell them how long a stride to take in their warrior pose (Virabhadrasana I). Whether long or short, it is the knee over the ankle that will protect their joints, softening the shoulders, finding the breath deeply moving through, and this is what will allow them to continue to explore the openness in their hips, and the ease of their spine. It is through this process of finding their foundation that begins to release into the support that allows longer holding of the asana and movement within it. Overriding their own needs, and over-reaching cuts off all the possibilities. As the body opens, so does the stride. Taking a posture to look a certain way without listening to your own body is not yoga.

So it's great to take a beginning class, a slow flow class or a more technical take-the-asana-apart workshop in order to work with a teacher who can offer the adaptations and reasons why using a block or a blanket will help you gain the benefits of a posture. Teachers usually explore a series of postures and preparatory actions that help open your body, your breath and your mind for the more advanced asana to come. At each step along the way, noticing what you can relax and release, noticing the source of your foundational support, and keeping your attention on the breath will help bring you deeper and deeper into your practice, no matter what "shape" you are in.

Feeling the Connection

Many a day my practice is a solitary behavior in a specific place where I can find the physical space to lay myself out. Those whose idea of me is "the official yoga teacher" would laugh out loud to see me wedged between two beds in a handstand, or propped up against the cellar door exploring scorpion. My family might find me zoned out at the end of practice in a supine twist in the middle of the living room floor. There is no reason to resist warrior in the kitchen, where the floor is clear; where the view of my own heart is as good as it is anywhere. I lost my attachment to the mat early in my exploration of yoga, finding that waiting for the mat and the private quiet space would just leave me waiting rather than practicing.

Classes bring the body into a space with other bodies. There is a wonderful confluence of influence in this. Following the intention to do yoga brings you to the class, and the class structure provides you with the breath of others around you, as well as the guidance, encouragement and support of the teacher. There is a commitment to be present. Watching over all the varieties of student I see one yearning among them all, to be and to be fully. Even without knowing what that is, or how that might feel, there is this possibility palpable in the room. By the time we find savasana, the sense of being fills the space, however large, however small.

By myself, on a mat between this and that furniture with barely enough clearance to extend one leg fully sideways, I have this same connection to the breath of all living beings, to the open space of the moment. Making the connection is all it takes.

The first stage is exactly the same no matter where I am: allow myself to be present. I seek my foundation. Just noticing where my body touches the earth helps draw my attention inward and releases me -- surrenders my will -- to that which sustains me. (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya) Perhaps it is my sitting bones below me and the gentle pressure I feel on my ankle bones that enables me to let go of my earthly weight into the earthly support in Sukhasana (Easy Pose - crossed legs on the floor). My tailbone melts a bit, muladhara (root chakra) drawing energy like roots from the earth itself. This loosens the lower back and my spine rises in a natural curve that has evolved over thousands of years to find full expression right here in my own body. (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya)

This inhale draws the ocean up through me in a wave of oxygen and as I exhale my shoulders rest more lightly atop my ribcage, the weight of my arms gently moving out and away towards my hands resting on thighs (or perhaps fingers gently on either side of me on the floor -- or cupped in my lap), just as my knees gently drift away from my hips. By now I am in the room, I am on the mat, I am in the breath, I am in this moment fully. If the cat rubs against my knee, I smile or perhaps stroke the last inches of tail as it passes, and feel the lightness of being right here, right now. This is not a closed posture, one where the gates are all shut tight to protect the experience. This is a wide open space where everything can exist at the same moment. It has taken me years and barely a few moments to be here, now. (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya)

I find this is the same if I am flat on the floor, or with elevated knees, or in Tadasana (standing mountain pose) waiting for a light to turn green on the street. This connection to the present, this awakening of awareness, this being present with the breath itself is not bound up in yoga mats and classes, nor even in "yoga practice" per se. You can find this connection in a crowded subway, feeling the essential quality of presence among others there, (Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya) or alone waiting for the bus by the side of the road. The breath and the being will connect you to all living beings, once you are here, there is no other moment, no other place. Just this. (Surrender to that which sustains me = Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya.)

When you feel you are lost or when you feel full of being, try inhaling "just" and exhaling "this." No pre-existing conditions are required to be present, just this - setting aside attachments and judgments, allowing yourself freedom. Oh sure, the yoga asanas make this easier in that they open awareness and energy channels, take the body into healthier and more supported ways of being, draw awareness to patterns that can then be more easily released... all good! Yet that connection to being is always there in this inhale, and this exhale. Just this.