Categories
Yoga Yoga Teacher Training

Selling the Yoga Experience

Telling vs. Selling: 200hour Yoga Teacher Training to tell your story.

I started my own 200hour Yoga Teacher Training program. It’s exciting and I believe in the product, but I have to figure out how sell my product without being pushy or obnoxious. I have to describe the product in meaningful terms. Using vocabulary that is easily misconstrued as industry jargon, I have to relate a story that describes my yoga practice and my product.

recharge, rejuvenate, inspire

holistic, authentic

Have these words become meaningless industry jargon?

Self-promotion has to be loud enough to be heard over the noise of Instagram, Twitter and fourteen other platforms. But it can’t be so loud to the point of obnoxious arrogance. Furthermore, tweets and posts must have meaning attached to the jargon.

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The noise of social platforms is deafening

Instagram allows up to 2,200 characters, but optimal posts have no more than 150 characters. The allowable characters have become industry buzzword. And those buzzwords saturate the market and compromise the reliability of the products.

“Join me at yoga teacher training and #recharge your practice. Learn to teach #authentic yoga classes. Discover your #holistic approach to well-being.”

That statement has fewer than 150 characters and contains the right words. But the vocabulary barely registers. There is so much scrolling  through so much content that it’s at risk of becoming meaningless jargon.

So how do I attach value to my yoga teacher training? How do I give meaning to my product? Authenticity comes from the story behind the service.

My goal is to teach prospective yoga teachers how to transmit their own belief in yoga.

Land and Heart Yoga

And to do this, I have to be truthful about my own yoga story. Not because I have anything to hide, but because it’s the difference between telling and selling that adds value to my product.

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The days of market trickery are over because everyone is selling themselves online. Everyone has curated an online persona and whether or not they’re selling a product, they all know that Instagram isn’t real. And that’s why telling the story behind the product is crucial.

The authenticity and the meaning in my yoga teacher training comes from a flawed and vulnerable existence.

That is what’s relatable.

IMG_20181208_140323
Can a yogi wear a fur hat? I’m vulnerable in my yogic beliefs because I don’t subscribe to all the trends. Like veganism.

Behind the promotional jargon is real experience. I constantly #recharge my yoga practice by being true to what I believe in. Pulling fish out of the lake and wearing locally-sourced fur is more important to me than importing lentils for a vegan diet or shivering in synthetic fabrics.

The classes I teach are #rejuvenating because I base themes around relevant topics for a specific community.

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Yoga Teacher Training Online

Ten weeks. Part time learning. Full time yoga.

I don’t discuss veganism when I know most of my students have moose meat in their freezer. Instead I’ll reference the value of taking only what’s necessary from the land.

MVIMG_20181007_124612
You can simultaneously believe in hunting moose and practicing yoga

Yoga Teacher Training will be #authentic because you’ll discern your personal reasons for practicing and learn to teach only what you know. If you’re an expert on knee anatomy because you’ve had three knee surgeries, you’ll incorporate that. If you have personal experience with vegan lifestyle and you believe in in, you’ll incorporate that.

Yoga is a #holistic approach to well-being because the practice insists that you listen to your emotions and body and understand yourself. Extract what’s relevant from the philosophy of yoga and learn to teach what you know. The honest story behind the promotion will shine through and the jargon will be rightfully redeemed as useful vocabulary.

Yoga is for everyone, regardless of lifestyle choices.

The vocabulary, just like the yoga itself, can be tuned to fit every iteration of practice. Tune out the jargon, but tune into the meaning behind the vocabulary. The stories are what makes the promotion believable.


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Yellowknife Yoga Teacher Training
Yellowknife Yoga Teacher Training. Come together to share your story.
Categories
Skiing Yoga

Meditation and Rehabilitation

Meditation is the art of freeing yourself from life’s annoying circumstances. Life’s ups and downs happen all around. Highs and lows. Pain and ecstasy. Love and loss. Meditation is the tool to free yourself from suffering and feel at ease in your circumstances.

A couple of weeks ago, I tore my ACL. Behind me is the foolishness of my pre-injured youthful self. Now I’m a grim-faced gimp. In a moment of inattention, I metamorphosed from an egotistical and childish skier who didn’t know the debilitation of injury into a sedate and crippled adult humbled by the limits of my own body.

Slalok
Since I can’t ski right now, I’ve illustrated this article with gratuitous shots of my friends skiing.

Where formerly I would roll my eyes at friend’s descriptions of injuries to meniscus and patella, now I understand the anatomy of the knee with the same clinical accuracy that Jordan Peterson defends gendered pronouns. I hadn’t heard the sickening pop of a torn ligament and I was blissfully uninformed of the difference between MCL, ACL and PCL. They were just acronyms and I was just skiing. “No more conversation about knees…” I’d plead and loudly sigh as yet another friend detailed ACL injury and subsequent rehabilitation.

waiiiiiting
This is actually a conference on knees and skis. More than one person is bored listening to his friend talk about knee surgery.

But those days are over. Skiing and normal activities stripped away in a moment of complacency; the road to recovery lies ahead. The banality of a knee injury is not lost on me. For skiers, it’s as common as a cold. The tedium of thinking about my knee is oppressive. I’m obsessed with it’s healing, I’m terrified of slipping on the sidewalk and I can’t fathom the elasticity it’s going to take to get back in my ski boots, let alone on to my skis.

posing in the sun
Here’s a bored snowboarder unable to withstand the tedium of her skiing counterparts talking about their knees.

So what to do? So far, I’ve made it up and down a few flights of stairs and done some step-ups onto a 4-inch box. Those feats are a significant departure from bootpacking a 500-metre couloir or even doing consecutive box jumps.

Keyhole - Chamonix
First – walking up the stairs. Then – back to bootpacking

But it doesn’t matter what I could do before. All that matters is what I can do right now. Circumstances can’t be changed, regret is a waste of time and the only thing to do is whatever it takes to heal and get back to the mountain. And that includes yoga.

road to recovery
The road to recovery – one step at a time

I’ve told countless injured friends over the years that they should get on the yoga mat. Regardless of injury, regardless of perceived inability to “do” yoga. “I can’t go to yoga because my back/neck/knee hurts.” Well, you should go to yoga because your back/neck/knee hurts. I’ve said this to injured friends, with tyrannical authority, but I didn’t have any first-hand experience on the logistics of getting an injured body onto the mat and into the practice. Until now. Bitterly tasting my own medicine.

Waves
It’s a deep season that I chose to miss. Cayoosh – January 2019

On the day after the injury, I went to yoga. I wanted to stay home and watch Netflix. I was unhappy about being hurt. It was all so predictable. Skier injures knee. How typical, how prosaic. I was despondent and defeated by my circumstances. Yoga, meditation and the accompanying introspection was the last thing I wanted to do. I didn’t want to accept my circumstances; I didn’t want to be free from suffering. I was furious. This was the strongest I’d felt in years. This season was going to be mine. But that strength and confidence was gone. And I wanted to wallow in self-pity, not meditate on the gift of the present moment.

Japow
Shredding the present moment

But on crutches, in pain and feeling sorry for myself, I wobbled into the yoga studio. And at risk of sounding imperious, I’m here to emphasize that yoga is, indeed, the thing. Logistically, I couldn’t do many of the poses. In fact, doing any poses was out of the question. But I could lie there and quietly breathe, do a few knee bends and focus on cultivating a positive attitude. And as cliche and over-stated a positive attitude is, it really is all we’ve got. A positive attitude, unshakeable by circumstances, is the means to survive all of life’s disagreeable circumstances. Yoga and the accompanying meditation teaches comfort with discomfort.

DOA + Whistler
Keeping your skis going fall-line is the best strategy against knee injury

Yoga is so much more than the poses. The poses are only 12.5 percent of the practice. I’ve said this before, but I don’t think I truly got it until I was lying there unable to do any of the asana, but still participating in the class just by being present. The other 87.5 percent of the practice exists in the mind. Concentration, discipline, meditation, freedom from suffering.

up and away
Freedom from suffering in perfect pow

It’s the freedom from suffering that is central to yoga and the tool to manage life’s circumstances. A knee injury is not the worst tragedy to befall anyone. It’s not really even a crisis, but it’s a temporarily debilitating detail in my story. We all have debilitating details in our stories. Whether it’s the unanticipated loss of a job, illness of a parent, being a victim of burglary, paralysis following a car accident. These are all tragic circumstances. The hard truth though is everything could always be worse. But it could also be better. The point is that good and bad things happen with equal regularity.  Meditation teaches that surviving the ups and downs is possible. By meditating on the present moment, you teach yourself that the collection of experiences that populate your life’s story are not the totality of your existence. Furthermore, the collection of experiences that cause pain and difficulty do not need to equate to suffering.

Spruceman on skintrack
The wise (spruce)man on top of a mountain.

The myth of the wise man sitting on top of the mountain is an archetype of someone escaping the confines of life experience in order to seek enlightenment and avoid suffering. It’s a story to illustrate meditation as a transcendent and literal state of being. But glorifying meditation in this unlikely scenario is a hyperbolic way of viewing the practice. Literally escaping the trappings of society and its accompanying pain and sorrows isn’t necessary because meditation provides an avenue to metaphorically escape the confines of difficult circumstances. The trick is to use meditation to pay attention to the present moment, cultivate a positive outlook and refuse to suffer from unfortunate circumstances.

Experiences and circumstances are sometimes beyond control. Events that cause pain are unavoidable. But choosing to suffer (or not) is definitely within your control.  Practice meditation as a strategy for accepting and coping with difficult circumstances. Learn to be comfortable with discomfort and maintain a sense of ease through all life’s injuries.

Cosmiques
Comfort with discomfort in the mountains

Lying on my yoga mat with a swollen knee, I didn’t feel prepared to accept my circumstances. But recovery will follow a specific trajectory and there isn’t any way to expedite the healing. I can’t change what happened and my ski season is over. So many details in my life are different now: the inability to walk the dog, waking up to searing pain because my knee twisted in the sheets, boredom with the only cardiovascular exercise I can currently do (swimming). But my ability to tolerate these frustrating changes and to thrive as a contributing member of society is predicated on making the conscious choice not to suffer.

Sprucedude
Suffering is optional

Suffering from these circumstances is easy. Using meditation to alleviate suffering and to understand my intrinsic worth is hard. Living a worldly existence populated by experiences and injuries is easy. When something as consuming as injury happens, it can be hard not to obsess with the story and the healing. But circumstance does not represent the totality of existence. Meditation is freedom from preoccupation with circumstances. Pain and difficulty is mandatory. Suffering is not.

Categories
Yoga YTT Blog

Yoga, weight loss and the search for compassion.

Weight issues are epidemic in our culture. Obesity as a medical problem is widespread, and overweight patients are often prescribed “weight loss” as a solution to any medical problem.  People with the particular physical characteristic of excessive body fat are given only one prescription for health. They feel constant pressure to conform, change and shrink.  They’re barely given much more advice than “exercise more. eat less.” This “solution” does nothing to depict health as a psychological and physiological system. Yoga can help patients reframe their sense of self with compassion and acceptance.

Recently, a student dropped out of my beginner yoga class because she was doing too many “exercise classes” and didn’t have time for all of them. She said her doctor had prescribed exercise as a weight loss strategy, but she was tired and didn’t want to attend all the classes she’d signed up for. In spite of my best effort, I couldn’t convince her that yoga is more than exercise and is actually a complete system for health. She said she felt frustrated in exercise classes, conspicuously different from everyone else and “fat.”  She had been told too many times to “just get more exercise” and she viewed classes as evil and unwelcoming and yet another domain for the “thin” people.

People with weight issues often apply a reductionist attitude to their health. “If I go to HIIT/ yoga/ crossfit, then I’ll be fitter.” “If I eat less, then I’ll lose weight.” These statements are true, but they don’t do an adequate job of framing health as a physiological and psychological system. It’s possible that exercise and calorie reduction will result in better health and weight loss, but there are much larger systems at play. Yoga offers a perspective beyond the “if/then” approach to improving health.

Obesity is such a prevalent problem in society and there is a lot of literature devoted to how the medical system treats obese individuals. Anecdotally, it appears that the system can be dismissive of obese patients and even go so far as to blame any ailment on their weight. For example, the New York Times refers to stories of overweight patients with non-weight related conditions like scoliosis or Crohn’s disease being prescribed weight loss in lieu of further examination. Patients who feel discredited by the medical system experience stress, shame and frustration.  Yoga can be part of the prescription, but the power of the practice might surprise obese patients.

These patients know the basics of getting and staying healthy; they know that processed food is bad, eating fruit and vegetables is good, regular exercise is imperative and that it’s critical to keep stress at bay. But the medical system sometimes confuses habits and lifestyle and instructs patients to “better” their habits, “get” healthier and “change” something with the expectation of “improvement.” Paradoxically, this desire to improve  creates stress. As an alternative to the desire to improve, yoga is a strategy to observe what’s happening with health and wellness. By doing a regular yoga practice, students are able to check in with their own physical and emotional self and understand their constitution from a point of view of acceptance rather than change.

By accepting themselves for who they are and not constantly being prescribed change and improvement, obese patients may be able to find wellness on the yoga mat – from a different perspective than they’re used to.

Obese students face many challenges in society, the worst of which is feeling the constant pressure to change their habits, overhaul their lifestyle and shrink. The pressure to change a physical characteristic is overwhelming but with weight loss being the only prescription, if they don’t succeed, obese patients are left feeling they’ve failed.

Yoga can give patients a new perspective on their health. By focusing on a meditation, they find acceptance and appreciation for who they are and remove themselves from the pass/fail outcome of results-oriented weight loss. Obese patients suffer from extreme attachment to a particular outcome. They are striving to lose weight and if they don’t succeed, they suffer because they are so attached to the outcome of their actions. The yogic perspective of non-attachment to outcome is a refreshing new perspective for a demographic who is being coerced by society to make changes to their appearance.

Yoga, meditation and a new perspective on “results” may help obese students love themselves in the face of society constantly telling them to change. From this love, a sense of wellbeing will start to bloom. Yoga teaches everyone to be compassionate to themselves. Obese students who struggle against society’s prescription of weight loss for health will find compassion towards themselves particularly useful. Weight loss is not the only prescription for health. Practicing yoga offers a consistent and steady approach to health that is not based on results. It’s a healthy lifestyle that is predicated on compassion.

 

Categories
Yoga Yoga Teacher Training Yoga Therapy YTT Blog

Thoughts for Yoga Teachers – explaining yoga as therapy

The practice of yoga is therapeutic. Anyone who has practiced yoga will agree with this statement, but the idea of “yoga therapy” is contentious. In January 2016, the Yoga Alliance requested that any yoga school remove the terms “yoga therapy” and “yoga therapist” from their title. This instruction was a precaution against misleading the public that yoga teachers are diagnosticians. The point was not that yoga isn’t therapeutic, but rather that yoga is not a strategy for diagnosing or curing ailments. The therapeutic potential of yoga comes from its consistent practice. Yoga is a complete system for maintaining health and wellbeing, but it is not a prescriptive solution to specific ailments.

As a yoga teacher, you will receive a lot of inquiries about how to “cure” a variety of ailments, or “treat” a specific population. Some examples include depression/anxiety, back pain, pregnancy, injuries, asthma, arthritis, insomnia and obesity. Your role as a yoga professional is to guide students to treat themselves for whatever they are suffering from. Yoga is not a replacement for other medical care, but it is a useful tool in healthcare. Consistent yoga practice offers students autonomy and awareness in their own healthcare journey.

The difference between yoga and other types of healthcare is that yoga does not apply a reductionist style of therapy. It requires commitment from the student and it is not a quick solution. For example, consider the following statements:

“If I meditate, then I’ll be calmer.”

“If I don’t smoke, then I’ll be able to run faster.”

“If I eat less, then I’ll be thinner.”

These statements are true, but they fail to capture health as a complete psychological and physiological system. Yoga affords a point of view that goes beyond the reductionist if/then approach to health. For example, the primary series of Ashtanga yoga is called yoga chikitsa. Translated, this means yoga therapy. The therapeutic application of Ashtanga is its systematic approach towards wellness rather than a prescription to cure/treat an ailment.

The therapeutic quality of the yoga is its attention to discipline, devotion and patience. Yoga chikitsa is intended to be practiced daily. Practitioners are to do each pose in sequence and follow the other suggestions for a well-rounded lifestyle.

First, you have to practice for a long period of time; second, your practice must not be interrupted—you must do it regularly; and third, you must do your practice with love and respect.
-Yoga Sutra 1.14

It is these qualities of the practice – discipline, devotion and patience – that students can apply to other therapeutic requirements.

How to teach therapeutic yoga

First, you must provide a nurturing and welcoming environment for every student that comes to your classes or even who asks you a question. Yoga is therapeutic in its consistent application. But suggesting this to a student who has recently been diagnosed with arthritis or asthma or depression and who is looking for a prescriptive “fix” may be counterproductive. Students who have recently been diagnosed with an ailment, particularly if they are new to yoga, will not initially be receptive to your suggestion that yoga must be practiced regularly and consistently. Incorporating a yoga practice into a healthcare regime is fundamentally different than taking a pill or getting surgery. Informing students that they must practice “forever” will be overwhelming. Furthermore, with insidious problems that require therapy such as obesity or back pain, students might be reluctant to embrace the lifestyle changes that are necessary to change their circumstances. So, it’s important to be compassionate and welcoming to each student, regardless of their previous yoga experience and regardless of their current expectations of the practice.

Next, be patient and creative in your approach. Encourage students as they develop a regular practice. Although it might be obvious to you how yoga is therapeutic for many ailments, the yogic approach of a mind-body connection might be foreign to new students. Assess each student by asking questions about their experience, their perception of yoga and what aspects of yoga make them feel better. Elaborate on this by making yoga appealing. For example, an injured athlete with a lot of energy may not stick with a seated meditation practice. She might find it boring and annoying. Propose to her instead that she try walking meditation. Instruct her to set a mantra before she walks and then to repeat the mantra during the walk. Just as yoga is an overarching solution for almost any ailment, there are infinite ways to incorporate yoga into a lifestyle.

Finally, even though yoga therapy is not a replacement for medical intervention, it is a valuable companion to medicine. As a yoga teacher, you have the time to discuss with students what is ailing them and together, you can evaluate lifestyle changes, such as work environment, leisure activities and emotional circumstances. Together, you and your student can determine an effective and useful application of yoga. Furthermore, by consulting with your student, and putting them in charge of their own health via yoga, you are giving them the autonomy to take charge of their personal wellbeing.

Yoga may not be a prescriptive tool to cure ailments, but it does provide a therapeutic elixir of which students have control over the dosage.

Categories
Yoga

Integrating yoga philosophy: the Koshas

Understanding yogic philosophy is daunting! It can be difficult to convince yourself that there is more to yoga than physical poses. Yoga classes are so focused on doing the poses, that practitioners might wonder what else there is to yoga besides stretching and balancing in awkward poses.

Most people who come to a yoga class really do want the vigorous part of the practice – they want to stretch, work their muscles and get the blood flowing in their bodies. It’s the physical asana that tends to calm people and satisfy their craving for movement. In the warmth of that calm, philosophical teachings become meaningful and relevant.

The koshas are a way to explain the layers of yoga. By envisioning the self as a series of layers, yogis can start to understand their true purpose. Furthermore, understanding the koshas in harmony with other philosophical aspects of the practice gives yoga meaning beyond a physical workout.

Studying yoga reveals that the central intention of yoga is to understand and have knowledge of the self. “Knowledge” is the emphatic belief that there is only the present moment and that the self is inextricably united with the present moment and nothing more.

The quest to understand the self is as timeless as humanity itself. Modern yogis are no different from their predecessors in their search to understand who they are, what their purpose is and what it’s all for. Without a sense of clarity, the daily drudgery of activities can seem toxic, pointless and without merit. By examining the five koshas, the layers of the self, yogis can arrive at a state of bliss and understanding about who they are in relation to the world.

Annamaya kosha, Physical sheath

Awareness of physical sensations. The physical body is the most obvious part of the self. It’s the part the world sees first. Awareness of annamaya kosha brings attention to how the body reacts to external force such as exercise, accidents or substances. Reluctance to truly feel the physical body and to understand its needs can result in feeling unwell. Yoga poses draw attention to the physical body and instruct you how to treat your body to avoid injury. Awareness of what you eat and how you move will instruct you on how to take care of your body. Becoming aware of annamaya kosha teaches you how to nurture and honour your physical self. This awareness contributes to ease and a sense of peace to your life.

Exercise: Physical awareness. Think about your skin. Visualize how it protects your organs, bones and muscles. Think about your muscles. Visualize how they work together to propel your body. Visualize your organs. Heart, liver, kidney…. Envision how these organs take care of your body. How they work together. Now focus on one organ. Hold it in your attention. If other thoughts pop into your head, label them (“thought”), and bring your attention back to one organ. Notice the appreciation you feel for the physical body as a system. Understanding annamaya kosha gives you an appreciation for how your body works and how you take care of it.

Pranamaya kosha, life force sheath

Awareness of the breath. Pranamaya kosha is the breath and the life force that flows through and around the body. It’s an energy that you can feel within yourself and that can be felt by others around you. Energetic, dull, lethargic, buoyant, excited, calm…these are all descriptions that describe your energetic life force.

Exercise: Breath control. Notice how your breath flows in and out of your lungs without you consciously needing to do it. The breath is one of the only subconscious needs that can also be harnessed and controlled. Observe how you can control your breath and that you can calm yourself down or energize yourself by changing the pattern of your breath.

Manomaya kosha, mental sheath

Awareness of ideas and behaviour. Emotions and thoughts punctuate your day. Manomaya kosha is the layer of thoughts and ideas that make sense of the world around. This is a layer of feelings and emotions that arise in response to external stimuli. Noticing this layer of mental awareness is necessary; reacting to every thought is not necessary. Manomaya kosha contains thought patterns that have been created by absorbing information from family, culture and perceptions of the world. These thought patterns are worth noticing because they describe the world around you and create a running narrative. The trick is to notice the thought pattern, be non-reactive to it and realize that thought patterns can be modified.

Exercise: Self-inquiry. Write down a situation in your life that has recently changed. Write down three thoughts about it. Now, one at a time, examine each thought. Ask: “how would I feel without this thought?” Notice a change in breath and awareness of self. Now consciously replace each thought with “I have the freedom to choose my reactions,” “There are numerous ways to examine this situation.”

Vijnamaya kosha, the wisdom sheath

The ability to observe the body and mind without judgement. Vijnamaya kosha is wisdom, intuition and knowledge of self. Awareness of this layer will provide insight into who you are. It’s like finding the flow state in work or sports or art. A feeling of transcendence where purpose and intention become clear. Access to vijnamaya kosha arrives when the first three koshas (body, breath, emotions) are peeled away and you can access the intuitive self.

A yoga practice for this is to focus on the third eye (spot in between the eyebrows). This is where intuition is housed. By quietly focusing on that spot, true information about the self can be revealed. For some, access to vijnamaya kosha will be revealed through a vigorous vinyasa practice. For others, a quiet introspective pose of forward folds like supported paschimottanasana or child’s pose will provide access to intuition.

Exercise: Complete concentration. Choose an activity that you love and that challenges you. Whether it’s work, making art, playing sports, writing, reading. Give yourself time to focus wholly on the activity and continue to do it even if you feel the desire for distraction. Distractions abound – social media, chores, pets – but you have the power to ignore the distractions so you can lose yourself in the flow state of the activity. Observe how that feeling of transcendence guides you to a greater purpose.

The next time you practice yoga, recall the absorbing feeling of being in a flow state. See if you can find that transcendence in your practice. From that transcendence, patiently wait to see what your true self, your intuition, reveals to you.

Anandamaya kosha, the bliss sheath

Awareness of the true self. This most hidden sheath is acutely felt through the instinct that life itself is good; that being alive is worth it. Revealing this sheath is to understand that life is its own reward. Mantra and meditation are a tool to connect with anandamaya kosha. The information that reveals itself is that love is the ultimate state of being.

These statements aren’t to mean that emotional ups and downs are not going to happen, rather that contentment and acceptance of all moods is possible.

Peeling back the layers to reveal anandamaya kosha and finding yourself in the bliss body is more of a visceral feeling than an intellectual one. It’s a subtle awareness that everything is as it should be, that love and joy are the foundation of the universe and that happiness is possible for all.

Exercise: Meditation. Practice sitting quietly, alone and without distraction. Practice acceptance of your physical body, of your breath and of your emotions. Some days it won’t work and you won’t be able to find bliss and contentment. But some days it will work. You’ll feel simultaneously grounded and buoyant and content with who you are. With practice, this awareness of bliss, of anandamaya kosha, will be increasingly easy to remember and you’ll be able to tackle life’s challenges with acceptance and compassion, and understand that the present moment is really all there is.

Categories
Retreats and Events

New workshop: twelve days of sun salutations

The summer solstice is nearly upon us! Celebrate the beginning of summer with a special 12-class morning yoga series. Greet the sun every morning with a vigorous ashtanga-inspired yoga practice. Each one-hour session will be a full practice, but with a special daily focus on each of the 12 poses of the sun salutations.
All body types and experience levels will be challenged. Students will learn the name of each pose and benefits of doing the poses in sequence. Also, options to modify will be provided.
Note that other poses will be included in the daily practice, but the focus will be on the value of practicing sun salutations.
A disciplined daily practice with a focus on repetition will be emphasized.
Tuesday May 23 – Friday June 8, 2018
645-745am at Taiga Yoga Studio in Yellowknife
To register:
http://www.taigayoga.com/workshops/2018/6/4/solstice-intensive-morning-sun-salutation-series
Meet you on the mat!
For more details about sun salutations, see the following tutorial:
Sun-Salutations-A-B-Chandra-Namaskar-1
Categories
Yoga YTT Blog

Mindful Meditation for Peace of Mind

You don’t have to practice yoga every day. But when you need your practice, you’re going to wish you’d been practicing every day.

Land and Heart Yoga

Yoga is a physical, emotional and psychological practice. The physical part, the poses, is the most obvious. The emotional and psychological components of a yoga practice are much harder to understand. But tapping into the emotional, mindful and psychological aspect of yoga presents a platform for training the mind to avoid negative self-talk and unnecessary distractions. Try practicing mindfulness meditation as a way to navigate difficult experiences, understand interpersonal relations and ease the suffering of yourself and those around you.

When the body is suffering, there are tools that can be used for healing. Tools such as resting sore muscles, splinting broken bones or massaging tired muscles are all useful for healing what ails the physical body. On the contrary, when the mind is tired or emotional pain is present, the tools necessary to heal are not as apparent. The subtle body and the mind present great complexity and require tools such as mindfulness yoga for healing.

There will always be suffering. Emotional suffering is an inevitable part of the human condition. Heartbreak, loss, failure, rejection…these are just a few examples of suffering that every human will experience. The attachment to this suffering is optional. As children, our personality structure is based on seeking love from the environment. Seeking and finding love is a strategy of the ego and children must pursue love and acceptance as a survival technique. As we reach adulthood, however, the pursuit of love, acceptance and pleasure creates a false sense of self. Constantly seeking approval and love from external sources represents the inherent idea that we are “not enough” as we are and thus suffering ensues when external circumstances of love and acceptance change or disappear.

Blooming flowers and butterflies

The strategy for navigating difficult emotions and indulging in less suffering is to train the mind and heart to be free of misunderstanding of the true self. Mindfulness meditation is the tool. Our lives are a collection of stories and the challenge is to understand that these stories are not the totality of our existence.

By understanding that experiences and situations are often beyond our control, we can escape the assumption that experiences and emotions represent our faults as humans.

The intention of mindfulness meditation is to develop a strength where sensations such as emotions are present, but not threatening.

Our greatest challenge to misunderstanding ourselves is interpersonal relationships. If, as Sartre said, “Hell is other people,” then how can we escape that hell? Sartre did not mean this literally; as in, he didn’t mean that other people are poisonous villains. What he meant was that much of our understanding of ourselves comes from the knowledge that other people already have of us. Our interactions with family, friends, strangers and coworkers creates parameters for how we are judged. In turn, we judge ourselves by the same criteria. If we can escape this judgement and stop allowing other people’s perception of us to be the dogmatic definition of ourselves, we can achieve a sense of peace and a deeper understanding of ourselves.

Northwest Territories. Get outside. Land and Heart Yoga

A heart-cultivation practice is a mindfulness meditation technique that acknowledges the other people around us, but does not focus on the mutual judgements and expectations we have for each other. This is a strategy for exercising the four qualities of the heart. It’s a useful strategy for managing difficult emotional times, but is most beneficial if it’s part of a regular practice.

  • Loving kindness
  • Compassion
  • Sympathetic job
  • Equanimity

Loving Kindness (metta)

Loving kindness is an inclusive, unconditional love for all living beings. It is not based on “merit,” and has no expectations of anything in return.

Start with yourself.

  • May I feel at home in my life.
  • May I trust the process of my life
  • May I feel patience with my circumstances
  • May I be free from harm
  • May I find peace and joy in this world
  • May I be happy

Next move on to a neutral person.

This can be someone with whom you have limited interactions. For example, someone that you see on your daily commute to work or the receptionist at the gym or the cashier at the grocery store. Practice sending loving kindness to this person with whom you have no positive or negative interactions with. A neutral relationship.

  • May he feel at home in his life
  • May he trust the process of his life
  • May he feel patience with his circumstances
  • May he be free from harm
  • May he find peace and joy in this world
  • May he be happy

Finally, if you feel ready, move on to someone with whom you have a very trying relationship.

Do the best you can.

  • To the best of my ability, I wish her comfort in her own life.
  • To the best of my ability, I wish her patience with her own circumstances
  • To the best of my ability, I wish her freedom from harm
  • To the best of my ability, I wish her happiness and health

Compassion (karuna)

Practice compassion by taking note of all the stages of suffering. Refrain from seeing suffering as a binary creation. Suffering is more than a start point and an end point. Suffering is a string of constituent parts and to be compassionate is to look at what is happening and look at the circumstances that gave rise to it. Being compassionate is the ability to recognize and be with pain and know that it is not personal. Rather, the experience of pain can be construed as a welcoming to the human family.

Practice compassion by choosing a person who you know is suffering. Focus on their experience.

  • May he be free from pain and suffering
  • May he grant himself permission to love
  • May he forgive those who have hurt him

By developing a feeling of compassion in your heart, you are cultivating an energy. By practicing this compassion, you are allowing this energy to grow and propagate.

Sympathetic Joy (Mudita)

Create sympathetic joy by acknowledging joy in the simplicity and finding joy in other people’s joy. This is a challenging practice, but it’s important to remember that someone else’s joy does not take away from your own potential for joy. The opponents of joy are envy and jealousy, but by unselfishly noticing someone else’s joy, the poisonous opposite feelings can dissolve.

  • May her feelings of joy be abundant
  • May she feel joy in the simplicity of her life

Equanimity (Upekkha)

Equanimity is love plus insight and is characterized as even-mindedness. Cultivating equanimity creates a skill set where you are not thrown off balance by your experiences. It is a recognition that all experiences, good and bad, are impermanent and that participation in the human experience will always present highs and lows, but neither needs to define you

I love all beings and understand that all their experiences are impermanent

Heart Cultivation Meditation

I love all beings and understand that making space for love, compassion, joy and kindness is the way to peace, not clinging to craving, jealousy, envy, pleasure or fear.

The practice of compassion

A regular mindfulness meditation practice is a tool for achieving emotional stability. By cultivating loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity, we can participate in the human experience with ease and understand that our experiences are not the sum total of our existence.

A traumatic or difficult experience may prove to be the catalyst to start practicing mindfulness, but the practice will be of most use if it’s done regularly.

You don’t need to practice yoga every day, but when you need your practice, you’re going to wish you had practiced every day.

Categories
backbends Yoga

getting into backbends

Spring is upon us, and with it comes a desire to make changes in my life. Every year, with the arrival of spring I feel a sense of stagnation in my life, and I desperately seek ways to bring fresh energy into every aspect of my life. In my apartment, I find this fresh energy by throwing away boxes of old clothes and books. I also take the time to spring-clean my kitchen, especially the fridge. Spring marks the return of fresh herbs and fresh vegetables to my diet. Spring also brings with it extra daylight hours, and the reduced darkness gives me renewed energy to set goals and make plans for the upcoming months.

In my yoga practice, backbends feel like the perfect way to invite in change and renewed energy. Winter in a cold climate often finds us shuffling along, laden down with heavy clothing, and hunched forward. Spring is a time to peel off layers, open our hearts up and find more time to run around outside, coming out of the hunched and face-protecting posture of the chilly Canadian winter!

Consider how you feel after you have been hunched over a computer for several hours, picking weeds in your garden or cleaning out a drawer. The natural instinct afterwards is to stand up straight, reach your hands overhead and stretch upwards! This is a backbend, and this is exactly the motion that springtime backbends are cultivating.

Backbends are the perfect antidote to a long winter and have many benefits. Backbends can

release tension along the front of the body
open the heart, inviting in renewed energy and letting go of stale emotions
counteract bad posture
realign the spine to its natural curve
help with digestive function
relieve stress by stimulating the heart (fourth) chakra
open the lower back, which will provide freedom from insecurity
prevent you from taking yourself too seriously.
To safely venture into backbends in a yoga practice, consider first warming up your spine with 3-4 complete sun salutations, warming up your hips with a pose such as crescent lunge, and warming up your spine with cat/cow, revolved lunge and several easy twists.

Once warmed up, some backbends to try include

locust, baby cobra, little bridge, full wheel, camel and upward-facing bow

Remember, as always, to practice patience with yourself. Move slowly into each posture, be mindful of pain or discomfort and be intentional in your practice. Finally, respect the limitations of your own body, and do not concern yourself with what other students in the yoga class are doing or with pictures you see of backbends on the internet!

Happy Spring and Happy back bending!