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Yoga Journal's Makeover Blogs
« December 2006 |
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| February 2007 »
After 15 years of playing hockey and nearly as many skateboarding, I stepped into my first yoga class. Picture it. Yep, you’ve got it: Tight (hamstrings like steel girders), imbalanced (I checked countless people using only my right side), and unsure (this was yoga, not a contact sport, after all). Yes, I was exactly what you’d expect. So, it stands to reason that Edith Chan, the heralded athlete and spinning coach, would suffer the same fate. Come on . . . She’s been hunched over her bike for thousands of miles, jammed her joints by pounding the pavement as she ran, and tightened her back-body by swimming lap after lap. Well, rules are made to be broken and clichés are clichés for a reason, because Edith doesn’t fit any of the athletic stereotypes when it comes to yoga. Instead, she has the most natural, graceful, balanced practice that I have ever seen in a beginner.
We’ve all heard someone in class say, "I don’t feel anything." Right? And, in those moments you—like me—may have had the urge to drop a block on that person’s pinkie toe because you felt so, so much at that moment that you thought you were going to pass out.
On a purely surface level, Edith is that person. She has deep forward bends, liberated backbends, and integrated standing poses. And, what’s more, she’s so conditioned from her training that she makes her poses look effortless—the way they are designed to be. So, what does all this mean? What, then, are we going to "makeover?" On what level are we going to deepen Edith’s practice and use yoga to enhance her athletics?
Like all art forms, we will move from the gross to the subtle. Stones can always be polished and made smoother. Understanding can always become deeper and more refined. So, Edith just happens to begin her yoga journey in a flexible, integrated, and strong body. She still has an edge. And, she still has layers upon layers—like everyone—of physical and mental conditioning that yoga can help reveal and address.
So, the next time that you feel the impulse to drop that brick on the A+ student next to you in class, remember something: All of us are just moving from a gross to a subtle understanding of ourselves, and we all have an edge somewhere.
Or, if that doesn't work, at least be kind and use a foam brick.
It's hard to believe I've been at this for almost a month. Each week presents different challenges, and this week's was a doozy. I let my impatience get the better of me and decided to supplement my home practice with a yoga video. I don't recommend that for a beginner.
While the video itself wasn't bad, it went so quickly and was filled with so many poses that I just couldn't do. I quickly became overwhelmed and frustrated. When it was over, all I could focus on was the tightness in my calves, the weakness in my core, and my wobbly balance. All this just as I was starting to feel confident. My video lesson brought sharply into focus the fact that at the end of six months, I'll still be a beginner.
It was a humbling thought, and it reinforced the need for me to view this experience, and yoga more generally, not as a goal but as an end in itself. I read somewhere that one component of yoga is to let go of the ego. I think that's good advice. It's the ego that drives us (or at least me) to be so goal oriented. I'm cursed (or blessed, depending on your perspective) with a strong desire to be good at things. When it's something I can't be good at quickly, I lose my focus. I don't quit, but I stop trying hard. That's a mindset I need to overcome. I need to try hard not because I want to get better, but because of the value inherent in the trying.
On the positive side, the home practice (minus the video) keeps getting better. Each time I practice, I can hold the poses just a tiny bit longer. More importantly, each time I practice I can hear what my body's telling me more clearly. The small adjustments that Jason makes during our weekly meetings seem less mysterious. I find myself adjusting my body on my own, and sometimes sinking deeper into the pose in ways that I didn't do a few weeks ago. That is my progress. Incremental but tangible.
After observing me in a few basic poses, we found that my Downward-Facing Dog revealed an obvious problem, probably related to my old rowing injury. In the posture, I have a substantial hump in my low back.
At home, I tried to do Down Dog in front of the mirror and attempted to force the hump down. The result was an increase in discomfort and locked-up sensations in the low back. I knew there must be a better way.
So this week at my private lesson, Jason worked patiently with me. Rather than forcing the low back flat, he taught me how to lift and lengthen my abdomen, torso, and ribcage. In order to do so, I found that I had to awaken my core, which I came to realize was quite lazy and probably a major factor in my back compression. Also, using the help of straps, I learned to create a sense of strength and stability in my shoulder girdles, which had been hyper mobile and overstretched in this pose. With a series of micro-adjustments, the pose felt much milder, more comfortable, and balanced. When I looked in the mirror to my side, I was pleasantly surprised to see that these mini-changes led to a beautiful line from my hips to my hands. For the first time, I felt the integration of the whole body in this pose, rather than disjointed parts of the body doing separate tasks.
It is also interesting to note that in my free-style swim stroke, I've often felt as if I had too much slack in the shoulders from attempts to lengthen my stroke through reaching the arms. Whenever I worked on reaching for a longer stroke, I felt that I was losing power at the beginning of my pull. This Down Dog lesson taught me that there is a way to create length by integrating the whole body but still maintain a sense of strength and stability in the shoulder and arms. I hope to apply this lesson in upcoming months as I work to improve my swimming technique.
Earlier this year, I took a vacation in Mexico with my 17-year-old daughter. I wandered into a sundries store where I found a book in English: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. I flipped to the back. It describes the life of a high-profile trial lawyer who has a heart attack and almost dies in the middle of a closing argument in a packed courtroom. Then, he decides to leave the law and goes to India to study yoga and meditation. Was this God talking to me?
I read the book in two days, and decided it couldn't be anything else.
When I returned to San Francisco, I read every book and magazine about yoga I could find. I was searching for a group to go to India with, but at the time, India was unbearably hot—120 degrees (not to mention unsanitary.) It became clear that I wouldn't be able go—but I knew I could not wait for the weather to change for my own, personal transformation. Death was perched on my shoulder and I knew it.
That’s when I finally decided to act.
As I progressed through week three, it occurred to me that I’d been out of town for about a third of the time that I’ve been doing yoga. My crazy schedule has given me a unique perspective on exactly how transportable yoga is. All I need is some non-restrictive clothing and I’m good to go. And the significance of that, to me, is more than just the fact that it’s an easy activity to pack for. Yoga feels unencumbered, which makes it seem so much more organic then the other physical pursuits I’ve tried over the years. So many activities that we embrace for our health require so much stuff. Even running, which isn’t exactly a gear intensive activity, requires a particular type of shoe. There’s something so amazing about just using your body without the distraction of equipment. Which isn’t to say I don’t like the strap and the mat and the blocks. I do. And when I’m practicing at home in the space I’ve set aside, I use them. But I don’t need them—and that’s empowering.
As for the practice itself, after three weeks I feel like I can do the poses that I know how to do well. I’m starting to feel my way through the practice instead of thinking my way through the practice. And I can honestly say I love it. But I also know that there is a universe of yoga that I haven’t even glimpsed yet. And while I’m excited to explore, I’m also afraid that the confidence that I'm starting to build will be crushed beneath the weight of all the things that I don’t know how to do.
This week at my private lesson with Jason, we practiced a sequence of poses that would become my first month’s home practice. The sequence is mainly restorative with some inversions, which should counter-balance the stresses of my athletic training and enhance the recovery process.
After Jason ran through the sequence with me, it completely allayed any worries I had of not being able to stick with a regular home practice (well, at least the first month!). The sequence he designed for me is so simple, so gentle, and feels so "right." It’s also worth noting that my weekly lessons with Jason take place on Friday mornings, which is usually when I am most tired and sore from my Thursday evening bike workouts. After my session, I found myself significantly less sore and fatigued than usual. It truly felt like my batteries were recharged!
The sequence is as follows:
1. Virasana (Hero Pose) for two minutes
2. Supta Virasana (Reclining Hero Pose) on a bolster for five minutes
3. Supported Adho Muhka Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog) with head on a bolster for two minutes
4. Adho Mukha Vrksasana (Handstand) against the wall for two minutes
5. Headless Sirsasana (Headstand) a hybrid between forearm balance and headstand against the wall for one minute
6. Supported Balasana (Child's Pose) with bolster for two to five minutes
7. Supported Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (Pigeon Pose) using a bolster and strap to enhance hip rotator stretch for two to three minutes
8. Chair twist (slowly twisting from lumbar, lower thoracic, upper thoracic, then neck) for one minute
9. Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge Pose) on a chair for two to three minutes
10. Salamba Sarvangasana (Shoulderstand) using the chair and blankets for support for 5-10 minutes
11. Viparita Karani (Legs-up-the-Wall) legs supported with straps and lumbar supported by bolster for 5-10 minutes
Thus far, I’ve practiced this sequence twice at home. The first time was rather disjointed because I had to go all over the house gathering the appropriate props! The second time went more smoothly since I knew which furniture items and props were necessary. As I got used to doing the sequence, I noticed myself wanting just one more element—an adductor/groin stretch. Coincidentally, at Jason’s Saturday morning public class, we did some Prasarita Padottanasana (Wide-Legged Forward Bends). My body told me loud and clear that this was exactly the missing component in my home-practice sequence.
When I chatted with Jason about this one missing piece, he encouraged me to pay attention to my body’s needs! He recommended that I insert a couple minutes of Wide-Legged Forward Bends in my home practice sequence. He explained that his goal is to help me become attentive to these signals from my body and to recognize the therapeutic sensations of each of the poses, so that after our six-month program, I could start to create my own home practice sequence. With my background in sports and holistic medicine, I am especially eager to learn all that he has to teach me.
Two years ago a student shuffled into my office at the San Francisco Bay Club, medical dossier in hand. He asked if yoga could help him minimize or cope with his troubles. Fairly grounded realist that I am, I didn’t want to oversell optimism just yet, so I said, "Well, maybe . . . I’m not sure . . . I suppose that it depends on a lot of factors, such as the nature and degree of your problem." He slid his Excel spreadsheet of medical history since 1989 (the year of the Loma Prieta Earthquake for you history buffs) across the desk, and asked me to take a look. I, of course, thought that walking around with a pocket-sized pain and medication ledger was a tad overboard. But, during our conversation I realized that, this gentleman was not totally crazed. Instead, he’s been in severe pain for almost two decades and this document was a way to organize, understand, and manage the difficulties. I also realized that he’d seen such an array of specialists over the past 16 years that he’d started to feel like a broken record . . . "I have had two lumbar surgeries . . . I suffer from acute sacroilliac pain and severe sciatica . . . I have substantial nerve degeneration in my legs . . ." and so on.
I gave him his traveling files back and asked him, "Why yoga? Why now?" A long, heartfelt conversation followed. Afterward, I answered his question about whether I could use yoga to help him: I told him, quite simply, that we could try. That was it—no miracles, no claims of grandeur, no quick store-bought solutions, no medical advice.
That was enough. He decided to use yoga to cultivate greater well-being, manage his pain, and develop a deeper kinesthetic and emotional understanding of his injuries and flare-ups. Two years later we still work together three days a week. Some weeks he feels good and other weeks, well, not so much. But our practice is always an honest revelation and a sincere investigation of what is happening inside his body and mind. And, as a yoga teacher whose had his fair share of exciting teaching occasions—teaching at seven Yoga Journal conferences to date, traveling extensively with Rodney Yee, being on staff at several teacher trainings, and having excellent students in public classes—this is the most satisfying thing I can imagine: Working sincerely and deeply with individuals in an effort to help them understand their physical and psychological patterns and cultivate more optimal ways of being—or to practice contentment with what is without needing to change.
This is the spirit I meet Edith, Mark, Leah, and the Yoga Journal Makeovers story with. Over the next six months, Edith, Mark, and Leah will use a tailored yoga practice to better understand their internal dynamics and address their specific needs. As I’ve gotten to know each of them fairly well I look forward to sharing their progress—and, yes, of course—their challenges with you.
This week was really good. I spent much of the week at Ft. Worden for a camp that I run every year for the Women's Debate Institute. Ft. Worden is amazing, and the weather was perfect, so spending a half an hour every day doing yoga wasn’t difficult, particularly since I could practice outside in the sun with beautiful views of a big, grassy field and the smell of the ocean to keep my mind at peace. And, to make it even better, my friend Rae, an instructor at the camp, is also a yoga instructor. So it was like having three more days of one-on-one lessons. Plus she taught me to roll the bottom of my foot over a tennis ball to relieve annoying foot aches—a trick that I will be forever grateful for!
While finding the time to practice was not a challenge this week, the actual practice was much harder than I expected. My yoga knowledge is so limited that I really have no choice but to follow the path laid out for me by Jason (my yoga instructor) if this is going to work. And part of that means following directions very closely—including the directions that said hold each standing pose for one to two minutes. (This didn’t seem hard when I read it on paper, but after 30 seconds my calves and neck were screaming. Thirty seconds started to feel like an hour.) By the second side of the last standing pose, that minute took an awfully long time. On the second day, I timed my breaths before I started practicing since looking at a clock seemed just a tad antithetical to the Zen space I was trying to create. That worked better, but I had to resist the urge to breathe faster to make the poses last longer.
By the third day, my legs and neck were really, really sore. But the soreness wasn’t really bad. It was more like an awareness of those parts of my body. The problem was that it was so uneven, which makes me think that my body is somehow unbalanced in the poses. Or maybe I’m just stronger on one side. Who knows?
The non-standing poses are easier for me. So far we’re only doing modified Sun Salutations and modified Downward-Facing Dog, which may be the reason. I love Sun Salutations. There’s something so peaceful about them. And after a while, when I stop thinking about coordinating my breath and movement and it starts to happen naturally, I think I can see off in the distance the balanced place I’m looking for.
For this yoga makeover, I have committed to practicing yoga four to five times a week for six months (one private lesson, one public class, and two to three home practice sessions each week). And I have a secret! Even though I’ve been a life-long athlete, I am actually quite lazy by nature! So I can’t help but be slightly concerned about my ability to stick with such an intensive yoga practice on top of an existing swim/bike/run schedule. But they say that "if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten." Yoga, besides being a valuable self-care practice in and of itself, can greatly enhance my swimming, cycling, and running so why not dive right into it and see what happens?
Up until now, I have been practicing yoga about once a week for a few months and have already experienced great benefits. It was raining cats and dogs here in San Francisco; the rain sometimes turned into hailstorms. Unable to do many of my outdoor rides or runs, I decided to replace them with yoga classes. I bounced around local yoga studios trying different instructors and found a high concentration of wonderful teachers at The Mindful Body. Then, I came across Jason Crandell’s Saturday morning class.The clarity of instruction, the energy and dedication of the students, and Jason’s light-hearted humor made for the most fun and enjoyable experience. By this time the weather had cleared up and my triathlete friends were out riding bikes every Saturday morning. But Jason’s class was so wonderful I decided to give up the group bike rides in order to attend it. Each week, I discovered a little bit more freedom, ease, and comfort in my body that clearly enhanced my athletic training. In time, a few of my friends were willing to wait for me to ride later on Saturdays, and some even joined me for morning yoga as a pre-ride warm-up!
So you can imagine my excitement when Jason approached me with the idea that Yoga Journal might offer me six months of yoga training with him to see how it could help my athletic performance!!
Well, here we are at Week 1 of my yoga makeover journey. I met with Jason for my first private lesson, where he guided me through a series of beginner-friendly poses and evaluated my areas of freedom vs. restrictions. We chatted about my athletic training schedule and concluded that my biggest area of need was recovering between hard workouts. Also, we must counter-balance the effects of hours on the bike, which often cause an old back injury from my collegiate rowing career to flare up. Next week, Jason will introduce me to a primarily restorative sequence, which will become the framework of my home practice for the next month.
I had just finished a nine-week jury trial—the longest and darkest of my career. I represented nine children from all areas of America each of whom suffered serious injuries because they were riding Wal-mart purchased bikes that had front wheel quick releases. In each case, while the bicycles were being ridden, the front wheels spontaneously fell off. The children, all boys ranging from 6-13 years old, were catapulted over the handle bars onto their head, face, and shoulders. Three had claims of permanent brain injuries, the others physical scarring, broken noses, and an on-going fear of bicycles.
I brought this case in San Rafael, CA (Marin County), because Wal-mart’s distributor is in San Rafael, thus providing a local forum. A previous similar case I handled for a boy from Phoenix, AZ was settled out of court just before trial for a confidential figure.
Because of the evidence that this had happened many times, with Wal-mart’s knowledge, I was driven to take this case to trial, believing there was no way I could lose.
Wal-mart had the same thought, apparently, since they hired one of the biggest law firms in Texas and also two large firms in San Francisco, just to fight little old me, a sole practitioner in San Francisco.
I didn’t worry that there were 15 lawyers in court against me—after all, I thought, only one could talk at a time! Cocky? Arrogant? Absolutely.
I thought it would be a three-week, slam-bam-thank-you-Ma'am trial. Wrong!
They managed to stretch it out to nine weeks, draining all of my energy, not to mention my spirit. The case was covered regularly by the press, and mentioned in the national news, including the Today Show, and Good Morning America.
I felt I was winning the case until the end. The jury was against me completely.
The composite force of those A-Team lawyers was too much for the judge and for me. Little did I know that two of the six Texas lawyers were world-class. It was a stake though the heart that left me thinking, "What now?"
It was one of the turning points that eventually led me to yoga.
After much anticipation, my yoga journey has begun. Aside from the rather ridiculous concern about what to wear—one of my only yoga experiences to date involved me wearing a too big T-shirt that basically came off when I tried Downward-Facing Dog—I was really excited for the first lesson.
We started with things that seemed pretty simple. The aforementioned Downward-Facing Dog, but with my hands on the wall, leg poses that seemed much like the kind of stretches you’re supposed to do after a long workout, and some standing poses that actually looked pretty cool in the full-length mirror. But what I quickly came to realize, is that, sadly, they were only easy when I wasn’t doing them properly.
The thing that absolutely amazes me about yoga is how big an impact really small changes in position and posture can have. I think to emphasize that, my instructions for Week 1 were just to do one set of leg poses each day. With just the one set to focus on I could really concentrate on coordinating breath and movement and aligning my body correctly to really feel the pose from head to toe.
The other piece that I know is going to be a struggle is trying to incorporate practice into my life every day. This week, my practice only took about 10 minutes—and even then, it was remarkably easy to get to the end of the day and realize that it was now or never. I need to work on that, and to carve out time that’s inviolate. I’m just not quite sure yet how to do that.
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What is your favorite time of day to practice?
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