stretching vs. yoga
By heather | August 2, 2011
I’m often asked what yoga will do for someone. Usually I’ll try to get some context – is this a quiz? A test to see what I know? You’re interested but you need some extra motivation to get you to take a class?
I’m finding myself lately not really very interested in answering that question. When you first start practicing yoga, you ride a wave of sudden self-awareness and wonder at the physical and mental aspects of the practice. Sooner or later, you’ll either become a teacher and the wave gets bigger or you sort of start to question the teachings with a healthy skepticism. This isn’t good or bad – if you take a teacher training, then the inevitable questioning of your practice/teaching/spirituality may be postponed, but it will eventually happen. Questioning is good – it forces you to figure out what your values are and what you believe, making your practice much more authentic.
I’ve had several yoga right turns, or near misses – whatever you want to call it. I started off taking yoga at a gym and started teaching after a weekend workshop in “fitness yoga”. This was more than 11 years ago. A few years later I was sore and injured and nothing about yoga was making much sense – I was ready to quit until I happened on my first Anusara workshop. I was instantly enamored, I felt like I’d found my yoga calling. Anusara made sense to me and it helped that I got an adjustment that relieved what was almost debilitating pain in my hip. I was going to practice and teach in this style and my world would right itself. This was in 2003. There were no Anusara teachers within 150 miles of me. So I went to workshops every chance I got. I became a much better teacher but never got the courage to quit my well-paying day job and go for what was calling me.
Fast forward to kids – I finally came to the understanding that there was no way I was going to pursue an Anusara training given the time committment and travel that would be required. A hot studio had just opened near my house and to teach there I needed an RYT. I sort of gave-in and signed up for a teacher training near home. It was a better experience than I expected, but nowhere near the experience I wanted. But you compromise and do what you can given the constraints that you place on yourself.
That’s a key point – the constraints were something I placed on myself, nobody forced me to settle.
I completed my RYT in February of last year, and have been teaching at that hot studio ever since. I wasn’t sure it was a good fit – I really hate being hot (being a pitta dosha), and I don’t like having to teach what someone else tells me to – but for a while it was good, even great. Which brings me to the next right turn.
Several things happened at once – there started to be a lot of drama at the studio: egos, personalities, a shift in the energy of the place. This spring, I went to a workshop and took a flow yoga class with creative, outside-the-box choreography and another set to hip-hop music. I taught an easier variation of the outside-the-box choreography and got an accusatory reprimand. I came across a series of articles on Elephant Journal that convinced me that 90% of the people practicing yoga take it way too seriously. Because let’s be honest – you may find some peace in the present moment and a decent workout, but you aren’t going to find spiritual enlightenment taking class with a teacher who took a 200-hour training and is teaching a formatted series that never changes.
Which brings me to my current disgruntled state and the answer to the question so often posed to me: why should I do yoga?
I don’t know and I don’t particularly care if you do. I’ve lost that yoga-evangalism so I can’t answer that for you. Think about why you WANT to do yoga. Because someone told you so? Because you’re wondering about this yoga fad? Because you feel guilty that you run 20 miles a week and never stretch? You have sky-high blood pressure?
The difference between yoga and stretching is simply intention. (I borrowed this comparison from somewhere but can’t remember who said it first.) If you’re stretching, you are sitting there thinking about the workout you just did or what you’re going to have for dinner. If you’re doing yoga, you are trying to fully experience every cell in your body. If you’re stretching, you probably aren’t paying much attention to how your body is aligned or how the stretch feels. If you’re doing yoga, you are constantly pulsing with the breath and using it to find a balance between strength and flexibility, effort and rest. If you’re stretching, you are entertained by the drama that surrounds you, if you’re doing yoga, it feels like an assault on the senses.
It doesn’t matter if you’re barefoot or lying on a sweaty mat in a room full of lululemon-wearers, if you aren’t trying to be present then you are stretching. It doesn’t matter if your teacher trained with one of the greats or is spouting off quotes from a book, it is what YOU are thinking and feeling that matters.
Topics: yoga | 1 Comment »
style advice that doesn’t go out of style
By heather | June 20, 2011
I was looking through some old files today, when I came across this which I originally found in 2004. A reminder from my 27 year old self to the self of today, these seem even more true now that I am older and supposedly wiser.
#1 Take your clothes for a “test drive” before wearing them for an important event.
#2 When in doubt, don’t wear it.
#3 The more skin, the less power.
#4 Know when clothes need to be retired.
I particularly appreciate number 3.
What would you add?
Topics: fashion | 2 Comments »
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roadmap
By heather | May 31, 2011
I want to start blogging again. I compose in my head, but then somehow never sit down to write. So many of my writing friends have lapsed in their postings, too. I use that as an excuse for why I haven’t bothered, along with too busy, too tired, too something.
I’ve been reading old entries and wishing now that I’d kept posting at least once a week. There is so much I forgot, so many little things that I haven’t written down and now are probably lost forever. I would like to not only capture new stuff, even if it’s in short posts, but I would like to go back and chronicle the cool stuff we’ve done. I want to write about the little, day-to-day things – especially the things that seem so huge at that particular moment but a year later I’ve forgotten all about.
So off the top of my head, the roadmap for days I am at a loss for something to write about: the Easter Egg Roll at the White House, the Imagination Movers concert, Alex’s first day of school, the last day at Miss Sue’s, the “no-pants daycare”, the new daycare, reindeer food at Christmas, New Year’s Day brunch, purging of all the baby stuff, taking a workshop with Anusara founder John Friend, turning 35, becoming obsessed with Oprah, my favorite books and songs, Emmy singing the monkey song, princess dresses, turning 2, turning 4, yoga music I love, my vegetable garden, quotes, asanas, Mother’s Day, 10 years, happiness, managerial finance.
Less editing, less overthinking, more hitting “Publish”.
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
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smart cookie
By heather | October 4, 2010
Scene: Dinner. I’ve just placed a scalloped potato and ham casserole on everyone’s plates. Although this is a relatively easy dinner, I should mention that my crappy food processor made it a bigger mess than it needed to be, and I hate to cook.
Alex: Yuck! I don’t like this dinner! Will you make me something else?
Me: No. I’m not running a restaurant.
Alex: Yuck! I don’t like this dinner. I’m not eating THIS.
Emily Kate (smiling sweetly): Yummy Mommy! This is the bes’dinnah evah!
It seems that Emmy has inherited the suck-up gene that Alex hasn’t yet discovered.
Topics: Alex, EK | 1 Comment »
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