One of my favorite funny people in yoga has left the blogging scene recently. This little bit of humor, posted yesterday, features a distraught Hitler learning the news of YD's departure. The video takes great big cracks at American Yoga and interestingly enough, for THIS blogger, uses the same metaphor I used in my Friday blog: American Yoga is a circus. Lots of laughs, and lots of digs at Bikram Choudhury. Funny funny fun!! Om Shanti Rant Away, Mein Yogi Kampf, and Goodbye for now, Yoga Dawg.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Yoga Rant: Come ON!
I am a yogi: practitioner, teacher, and business owner currently on sabbatical/break from the world of all-things-yoga except my own practice. This month, thanks to my 'exile', as one of my students calls it, I have had some time to check out the yoga scene in and around our fair city.
It's pretty much business as usual around here, yoga-wise. The big studios are mostly power and vinyasa-oriented, which makes sense since such yoga is trendy and caters to the buff and yoga-as-physical-exercise-mainly crowd. There are many, many (and counting)yoga teacher training programs sprouting up, which could mean there will someday be a tipping point of more teachers than students (unlikely, but funny to imagine!). There's a little more hot yoga (thank GOD, so therapeutic), very little easy-to-find prenatal, children's, and family yoga, a lot of high-quality yoga teachers instructing in small, unsuspecting non-studio places (churches, their homes, the Y, senior centers), and studios offering meditation, Nidra, and restorative (which power and vinyasa around here largely disregard). There is the never-ending push by studio boutique owners (typical of national trends) to encourage the consumption of yoga crap: You can buy outrageously overpriced (and embarrassingly so) $120 'yoga jeans', $65 yoga shirts, and $95 mats. On the other end of the spectrum, there are a few new studios opening up around here, some of them struggling hard, as can be expected in this recession, to stay open.
Nothing earth-shattering. Then there's this:
A nearby yoga studio has begun offering lap dance, strip tease (without the disrobing, I think), and pole dancing in addition to their usual yoga classes.
Far from being prudish and conservative, I am nonetheless stunned by this development on the yoga scene. I get it but don't want to.
I want to think that the yogis offering this blend of the ancient sublime with the burlesque visceral are merely confusing the 'freedom' yoga brings one--losing one's encumbrances, one's samskaras ('little scars')and the dropping of one's ego--with the 'freedom' to turn-on whoever we want to using our groins, booties, and pole-sliding thigh power. I want to think those yogis who decided to bring the lap dance strip tease pole dance (LDSTPD) into their spaces are offering a sound and healthful system for exercising the mind, body, and spirit. I really don't want to think they are offering, but possibly they could be, job training.
This issue makes me sigh. Yes, it's none of my friggin' business how people choose to express themselves sexually and all that. And it's none of my business how other yoga business owners want to run their businesses. But I have a voice that is somewhat immersed in the beauty and integrity of yoga, and that voice says: LDSTPD does not belong in a yoga studio.
Sexuality and yoga ARE intertwinable and unavoidable. Witness the several yoga celebs having affairs with one another, with their students, etc. That is bad yogic AND life practice, but that is not about what I speak. I'm speaking about the big come-on coming to a yoga studio near you.
I read in one blog that LDSTPD provides a "great cardiovascular workout!!!" And I read that it gives practitioners a sense of empowerment, helping them to "raise self-esteem!" Mere excuses: I can name dozens of other activities that bring similar results.
Does our exercise and self-esteem boosting need to be combined with movements that are nothing but movements that suggest foreplay? with our images of ourselves as real hotsy-totsies? with our sense of allure and the naughty? No. LDSTPD is so much less than yoga. It's even so much less than SEX.
But this is American Yoga: Take a pitcher of yoga. Add your choice of free weights, extraordinarily loud music, dogs, bicycles, seductive dancers, human nudity, kick boxing, food, and booze. Stir well. Serve in studios wherever there's a buck to be made.
Welcome to the Yoga Circus.
It's pretty much business as usual around here, yoga-wise. The big studios are mostly power and vinyasa-oriented, which makes sense since such yoga is trendy and caters to the buff and yoga-as-physical-exercise-mainly crowd. There are many, many (and counting)yoga teacher training programs sprouting up, which could mean there will someday be a tipping point of more teachers than students (unlikely, but funny to imagine!). There's a little more hot yoga (thank GOD, so therapeutic), very little easy-to-find prenatal, children's, and family yoga, a lot of high-quality yoga teachers instructing in small, unsuspecting non-studio places (churches, their homes, the Y, senior centers), and studios offering meditation, Nidra, and restorative (which power and vinyasa around here largely disregard). There is the never-ending push by studio boutique owners (typical of national trends) to encourage the consumption of yoga crap: You can buy outrageously overpriced (and embarrassingly so) $120 'yoga jeans', $65 yoga shirts, and $95 mats. On the other end of the spectrum, there are a few new studios opening up around here, some of them struggling hard, as can be expected in this recession, to stay open.
Nothing earth-shattering. Then there's this:
A nearby yoga studio has begun offering lap dance, strip tease (without the disrobing, I think), and pole dancing in addition to their usual yoga classes.
Far from being prudish and conservative, I am nonetheless stunned by this development on the yoga scene. I get it but don't want to.
I want to think that the yogis offering this blend of the ancient sublime with the burlesque visceral are merely confusing the 'freedom' yoga brings one--losing one's encumbrances, one's samskaras ('little scars')and the dropping of one's ego--with the 'freedom' to turn-on whoever we want to using our groins, booties, and pole-sliding thigh power. I want to think those yogis who decided to bring the lap dance strip tease pole dance (LDSTPD) into their spaces are offering a sound and healthful system for exercising the mind, body, and spirit. I really don't want to think they are offering, but possibly they could be, job training.
This issue makes me sigh. Yes, it's none of my friggin' business how people choose to express themselves sexually and all that. And it's none of my business how other yoga business owners want to run their businesses. But I have a voice that is somewhat immersed in the beauty and integrity of yoga, and that voice says: LDSTPD does not belong in a yoga studio.
Sexuality and yoga ARE intertwinable and unavoidable. Witness the several yoga celebs having affairs with one another, with their students, etc. That is bad yogic AND life practice, but that is not about what I speak. I'm speaking about the big come-on coming to a yoga studio near you.
I read in one blog that LDSTPD provides a "great cardiovascular workout!!!" And I read that it gives practitioners a sense of empowerment, helping them to "raise self-esteem!" Mere excuses: I can name dozens of other activities that bring similar results.
Does our exercise and self-esteem boosting need to be combined with movements that are nothing but movements that suggest foreplay? with our images of ourselves as real hotsy-totsies? with our sense of allure and the naughty? No. LDSTPD is so much less than yoga. It's even so much less than SEX.
But this is American Yoga: Take a pitcher of yoga. Add your choice of free weights, extraordinarily loud music, dogs, bicycles, seductive dancers, human nudity, kick boxing, food, and booze. Stir well. Serve in studios wherever there's a buck to be made.
Welcome to the Yoga Circus.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Get Unstuck When You’re Stuck (in Bad Weather Traffic)
Fact: I love winter. I can’t get enough of it. (Really, I don’t know why I just don’t move back to Alaska, or Maine, or get really brave and give it up for my fave northern place, Newfoundland.)
Fact: I live in Cleveland. Here, we are at this moment under a winter storm warning that will last at least 30 more hours. 6-10 inches of snow is expected.
Fact: This has me very excited, but I know I am in the minority, for (I hate to complain or sound like I am pointing fingers) many of you who live in this fair city--have lived here for a long time, even--hate winter or are pretty bad winter drivers, or both. I understand. That’s why I am writing.
For the duration of the storm, many of us are going to be stuck in bad weather traffic, like it or not, for there is a thing called work, and many of us have to drive to get there, and then get back home again. Allow me to now share a few tips with you to help you get unstuck from the sticky traffic sitches you’ll likely face. The key is to treat your commute, when it’s in bad weather, like you are in a groovy yoga class on wheels. Allow your transport to be transporting in the best, safest, calmest, most om’ish way.
1) Cover your survival bases. Take water, a blanket, and crackers with you. Have enough gas and windshield wiper fluid in your car.
2) If you have a favorite CD or i-pod playlist, take it and play it. Play it softly, beginning while you’re just starting out on your wintery journey. For storm driving, I highly recommend calm and serene music like Krishna Das “Door of Faith” or some tunes that make you so nostalgic in an easy-breezy way you just kick back, relax, and deal.
3) If you are in such a bad stuck-traffic sitch that you are in fact in your car but traffic is not moving enough to notice, listen to your music and watch the snowflakes falling or flying. Note all the shades of wintery colors around you. Try to invite a connection in your mind between the music you are hearing and the nature that is in motion: snow, trees, snow.
4) If you feel the slightest agitation, anxiety, or anger rising in you as you sit, crawl, or drive along, practice long deep breathing through your nose. This is the classic yoga breathing exercise that helps us use more than our upper lungs to breathe. When we breathe in and out slowly, evenly, and deeply through the nose, we get a lot of oxygen in the body, which calms the mind and slows the heart rate. When you breathe in, let your shoulders and chest relax and allow your belly to expand. When you breathe out, let your belly sink.
5) If you think #4 is too hard, weird, or distracting, practice it while you count slowly and methodically in your mind: Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4. Exhale 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. This gives your brain something to do while it isn't needed to drive but a foot every minute or so.
6) If you’re so stuck that you want further unstuckedness, make a game of your breathing. Inhale a four count, but say in your mind a one-syllable word four times or a two-syllable word twice instead of numbers, and repeat on the exhale. Example: (inhale) Peace, peace, peace peace. (exhale) Peace, peace, peace, peace. Example: (inhale) Sum-mer. Sum-mer.(exhale) Sum-mer.Sum-mer. In yoga, this is called a mantra. Mantras are repeated sounds or words that through their repetition put you into a blissful zone, get you unstuck, and bring you balance and perhaps even a feeling of oompf.
7) See all cars that surround you as fellow drivers on the same road in the same sitch as you. Cultivate the awareness that you are in bad weather with all those others around you, so you might as well be as kind and patient as can be. Even if people show rage and demonstrate scary and bad driving techniques, try not to make it your point of notice. Send them well wishes in their driving escapades and return over and over to your yogic driving practice.
8) Think Om. Think Om.
9) Do not text. Do not talk on your cellie unless it’s an emergency and you’ve stopped your car.
10) Stay present: one with the weather, on with your calm, and one with the road.
Fact: I live in Cleveland. Here, we are at this moment under a winter storm warning that will last at least 30 more hours. 6-10 inches of snow is expected.
Fact: This has me very excited, but I know I am in the minority, for (I hate to complain or sound like I am pointing fingers) many of you who live in this fair city--have lived here for a long time, even--hate winter or are pretty bad winter drivers, or both. I understand. That’s why I am writing.
For the duration of the storm, many of us are going to be stuck in bad weather traffic, like it or not, for there is a thing called work, and many of us have to drive to get there, and then get back home again. Allow me to now share a few tips with you to help you get unstuck from the sticky traffic sitches you’ll likely face. The key is to treat your commute, when it’s in bad weather, like you are in a groovy yoga class on wheels. Allow your transport to be transporting in the best, safest, calmest, most om’ish way.
1) Cover your survival bases. Take water, a blanket, and crackers with you. Have enough gas and windshield wiper fluid in your car.
2) If you have a favorite CD or i-pod playlist, take it and play it. Play it softly, beginning while you’re just starting out on your wintery journey. For storm driving, I highly recommend calm and serene music like Krishna Das “Door of Faith” or some tunes that make you so nostalgic in an easy-breezy way you just kick back, relax, and deal.
3) If you are in such a bad stuck-traffic sitch that you are in fact in your car but traffic is not moving enough to notice, listen to your music and watch the snowflakes falling or flying. Note all the shades of wintery colors around you. Try to invite a connection in your mind between the music you are hearing and the nature that is in motion: snow, trees, snow.
4) If you feel the slightest agitation, anxiety, or anger rising in you as you sit, crawl, or drive along, practice long deep breathing through your nose. This is the classic yoga breathing exercise that helps us use more than our upper lungs to breathe. When we breathe in and out slowly, evenly, and deeply through the nose, we get a lot of oxygen in the body, which calms the mind and slows the heart rate. When you breathe in, let your shoulders and chest relax and allow your belly to expand. When you breathe out, let your belly sink.
5) If you think #4 is too hard, weird, or distracting, practice it while you count slowly and methodically in your mind: Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4. Exhale 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. This gives your brain something to do while it isn't needed to drive but a foot every minute or so.
6) If you’re so stuck that you want further unstuckedness, make a game of your breathing. Inhale a four count, but say in your mind a one-syllable word four times or a two-syllable word twice instead of numbers, and repeat on the exhale. Example: (inhale) Peace, peace, peace peace. (exhale) Peace, peace, peace, peace. Example: (inhale) Sum-mer. Sum-mer.(exhale) Sum-mer.Sum-mer. In yoga, this is called a mantra. Mantras are repeated sounds or words that through their repetition put you into a blissful zone, get you unstuck, and bring you balance and perhaps even a feeling of oompf.
7) See all cars that surround you as fellow drivers on the same road in the same sitch as you. Cultivate the awareness that you are in bad weather with all those others around you, so you might as well be as kind and patient as can be. Even if people show rage and demonstrate scary and bad driving techniques, try not to make it your point of notice. Send them well wishes in their driving escapades and return over and over to your yogic driving practice.
8) Think Om. Think Om.
9) Do not text. Do not talk on your cellie unless it’s an emergency and you’ve stopped your car.
10) Stay present: one with the weather, on with your calm, and one with the road.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Ten Reasons Why You Should Take Yoga Classes Regularly
1. There’s a pretty good chance you want to get or stay healthy, and by now you must have heard that yoga helps. In yoga, your wishes can be your command, just like the guy on the beach who meets the genie in the bottle, for the first two wishes, at least. A little careful work and boom! (Good things come in small packages.)
2. For whatever reason, like so many others, you likely have a mat that’s not going anywhere fast. And likely it’s PVC, so you might as well wear it down until someone has created a way to safely recycle it or make it into something interesting like a boot mat or lead-free purse. Go to yoga class to get ideas.
3. When you’re holding yoga poses, you can bet you look pretty damned good if you have to say so yourself. Or, if you refuse to say that, say this: “At least I look interesting. Interesting is good.” Do you not want others to see that?
4. There’s a thing called the yoga zone. You get there best from going to yoga class and practicing with others. It’s also called the yoga buzz. ‘Nuf said.
5. As a very smart person, you ‘get’ this whole yoga thing. You prefer relaxation to non-stop struggle, and yoga classes end with this nifty moment called relaxation pose. Arrive okay, leave OM’d-out.
6. If you want to touch your nose to your toes, you’d better get started, like, yesterday. It’s a hell of a long journey no matter how you attempt the connection. Every good yoga class offers you the chance to reach for your toes, over and over again!
7. You kind of like the quirkiness of yoga teachers. They can be serious and silly, graceful and clumsy, nice and mean, and sometimes they throw impossible physical and philosophical curve balls at you ‘just cuz.’ “Screw ‘just cuz’ in all things except yoga!” could be a best-selling yoga t-shirt, you feel. You’ve come to expect quirky: now get out there and get it!
8. Some of the nicest people in yoga classes are single. Just sayin.’ In case that matters. Just sayin.’
9. You can’t get enough of that poetic and lyrical ancient language of yoga, Sanskrit. If you hear your teacher roll off one more ‘Prasarita Padottanasana’ as he’s walking by you, you think you might just melt.
10. You’re what people call a ‘people’s person.’ Yoga students tend to like themselves and other people. Yoga means unity. Get some.
2. For whatever reason, like so many others, you likely have a mat that’s not going anywhere fast. And likely it’s PVC, so you might as well wear it down until someone has created a way to safely recycle it or make it into something interesting like a boot mat or lead-free purse. Go to yoga class to get ideas.
3. When you’re holding yoga poses, you can bet you look pretty damned good if you have to say so yourself. Or, if you refuse to say that, say this: “At least I look interesting. Interesting is good.” Do you not want others to see that?
4. There’s a thing called the yoga zone. You get there best from going to yoga class and practicing with others. It’s also called the yoga buzz. ‘Nuf said.
5. As a very smart person, you ‘get’ this whole yoga thing. You prefer relaxation to non-stop struggle, and yoga classes end with this nifty moment called relaxation pose. Arrive okay, leave OM’d-out.
6. If you want to touch your nose to your toes, you’d better get started, like, yesterday. It’s a hell of a long journey no matter how you attempt the connection. Every good yoga class offers you the chance to reach for your toes, over and over again!
7. You kind of like the quirkiness of yoga teachers. They can be serious and silly, graceful and clumsy, nice and mean, and sometimes they throw impossible physical and philosophical curve balls at you ‘just cuz.’ “Screw ‘just cuz’ in all things except yoga!” could be a best-selling yoga t-shirt, you feel. You’ve come to expect quirky: now get out there and get it!
8. Some of the nicest people in yoga classes are single. Just sayin.’ In case that matters. Just sayin.’
9. You can’t get enough of that poetic and lyrical ancient language of yoga, Sanskrit. If you hear your teacher roll off one more ‘Prasarita Padottanasana’ as he’s walking by you, you think you might just melt.
10. You’re what people call a ‘people’s person.’ Yoga students tend to like themselves and other people. Yoga means unity. Get some.
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