COME FLY WITH ME

Do you take breathing for granted?  Well, I sure hope so!  If we had to think about literally every breath we take, we'd have no time for any other thought!  Our body has a brilliant apparatus for giving us a break from being in charge of every minute of keeping us alive.  Wikipedia puts it this way:

"The autonomic nervous system is a control system that acts largely unconsciously and regulates bodily functions such as the heart rate, digestion, respiratory rate, pupillary response, urination, and sexual arousal."

Whew!  Glad I don't have to consciously regulate all that.  My TV viewing would have to fall to maybe second on the list of daily priorities and with Game of Thrones in the final season, I really can't afford any distraction.

Still, thinking about breathing has surprising advantages.  Breath awareness really does bring us into the "now" of the moment.  In yoga classes we are often directed to become aware of the breath, to feel the air enter and exit the nostrils, to link breath with movement when doing asana practice.  While the poses help our bodies feel terrific at the end of practice, the attention to breath is also to thank for that aura of calm.

We are often told we can influence emotions with our breath.  If you are angry, anxious, excited, or stressed in any way, you may find yourself taking short, shallow breaths, moving air mostly in the upper chest.  This is because your sympathetic nervous system is getting ready for you to address whatever is stressing you -- the fight or flight (or freeze) response has kicked in.  Rapid breathing, rapid heart rate, bumped up blood pressure -- all that is good for short-term attention on survival.  It's not so good for long-term health and living a normal life.  For that we want our parasympathetic nervous system to come on board and calm the whole mess down.

To activate the parasympathetic nervous system we learn to take full, deep, "belly" breaths moving the diaphragm in a controlled manner to allow for a longer exhale than inhale.  If you are feeling stressed and turn your attention purposely to this type of breathing, before very long your stress will lessen and you will feel yourself calming, even happy.  Your heart rate will slow, your blood pressure will drop.  You will feel pretty chill.

Given that my life is thankfully pretty de-stressed overall, now that I'm retired, my kids grown, and things are going pretty well in general,  I tend to think I have little reason to spend much time in fight or flight mode.  But....

I am not a happy flyer.  I'm not so much afraid of crashing (although those thoughts do fleetingly enter my mind) as I'm afraid of the discomforts of air travel.  The whole experience is stressful for me:  getting to the airport on time, through TSA, onto the plane and into my (too cramped) seat.  The doors close and my claustrophobia kicks in, and I feel my heart rate jump, my breathing quicken, and my tummy roil as the anxiety-fueled nausea comes in waves.  I open my Kindle, put on my earphones, and try to block everything out.  I'm a mute seat partner, with every ounce of concentration going to keeping myself from freaking out.  (I bet you are just dying at this point to take a trip with me!  Imagine how my husband feels!)

On a recent trip home from Hawaii it was with some dismay that I heard the captain announce right after take-off that we could expect some significant turbulence over the Pacific about 2 hours out.  I immediately downed a Dramamine, pulled on my motion sickness wrist bands, and starting eating candied ginger to ward off any motion-induced nausea.  Sure enough at about that time in the flight the bumpiness started, then got worse, and worse, and worse....for about 30 minutes we rose and fell and swayed side to side.  It was NOT fun.  But here's what saved me:

I breathed.  I closed my eyes, gently laid my hands on my tray table, and breathed.  I breathed long belly-bulging inhales and much longer core-tightening exhales.  Over and over.  I breathed in....out....in....out...while distracting myself with a podcast playing in my ears, I breathed.  When I felt my shoulders tensing, I relaxed them.  Instead of fighting the motion, I just made my body as relaxed as I could and went with the flow of the turbulence.  Eventually we smoothed out and it was over.

After we landed a couple hours later, I thought back on the experience and could scarcely recall it, or at least didn't recall it as horrible.  It was as if I'd hypnotized myself in some way.  It was an odd realization, to have nurtured myself through what normally would have been a horrific experience just by breathing consciously.

We learn many things by practicing yoga.  I'm grateful breathing is one of them.©

Namaste,  donnajurene
Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com

INSTANT KARMA GONNA GET ME

I knew when I hit "post" after writing the previous blog post to this one that I felt a little queazy about it.  I am a nice person; I go way, way out of my way to ensure that I'm being thoughtful and considerate, even though imperfectly, I'm sure.  I'm only human; but I try.  But I've felt a bit uncomfortable about that post and how I critiqued a yoga instructor at the resort where I was vacationing.  I threw in some self-deprecating humor to temper my judgement and I really meant it when I said, I really know almost nothing about teaching a class by myself at this point in my training, so who am I to judge?  But judge I did.

Part of our homework this month in Yoga Teacher Training in the study of the Yoga Sutras is to delve more deeply into the Yamas and Niyamas.  These are the guides to living an ethical life and self reflection. The very first Yama is "ahimsa" or non-violence and compassion.

As I read, I felt myself growing more and more uncomfortable.  I'm about the furthest thing from "violent" you could find. I would never strike another person.  I will avoid, negotiate, and compromise my way through any conflicts with other people.  I also have a great deal of compassion.  I really and truly care about people.  Do I like everyone I meet?  Do I show up with casseroles every time someone has a crisis?  No, but neither do I not care about them, forget they are suffering, or turn away when asked for help.  Often I make notes of those who need extra caring and include them in my meditations.  They may never know, but I hope it helps on some energetic level.  At any rate, I think I'm pretty good at the non-violent and compassionate Yama.

Except.

In my reading I was reminded that "violence" can also be "meanness" and comes in the form of thoughts as well as deeds.  Harming can be as simple as making a negative judgement about someone.  In this age of social media, this can go so far as online bullying and lead to denigrating and name calling for some -- all the easier since people feel a sense of anonymity in making remarks about something someone has written online -- the writer hardly seems human.   Having only a part of (or none of!) a person's whole story can lead to making snap judgments, jokes, and assumptions that are far from true, far from accurate, far from non-harming -- indeed, far from compassionate.

I did that with the blog post.  It's fun to be funny, to point out absurdities, and to join in laughter that creates a bond with others in similar circumstances.  But is it fun to do that at another's expense?  Of course not.  I have no problem poking fun at myself, or teasing back and forth a friend or family member who understands and joins in, but writing about a virtual stranger and picking apart her job, her knowledge, her technique?  Not funny.  Not fair.  Not in keeping with an ethical life.

I could have said the instructor wasn't a good fit for me.  If asked why, I could state some examples, offering that she may come from a tradition I'm unfamiliar with, and that she may be just right for others.  End of story.  I didn't have to poke and gloat.

I guess this post is a bit of a mea culpa.  I hope we've all learned something here.  I know I have.

Namaste, donnajurene

WARNING: A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE AND NO EXPERIENCE.

You know the old warning about giving too much credence to a person with a little bit of learning but no experience?   Yep, that's me.

Now that I'm past the third intensive weekend of Yoga Teacher Training, I'm pretty much an expert.  Well, I haven't actually taught a class...but c'mon.  Is it really that hard?  Whatever.

What I'm pretty good at is critiquing other teachers.  Some are fabulous and I try to let them know what a good job they are doing.  They all work at Yoga Circle Studio, so it's easy for me to offer face-to-face praise.  

I save my "Here's how you could improve" suggestions for resort yoga teachers who might read this blog. (Not likely.)  No I don't critique them after class.  That would be rude.  But I did ask about props once and was told they don't use them -- storage issues.

I've written about this before. (Find my other travels posts under In and Out of the Studio in the Index.)  Whenever I'm on vacation I try to take advantage of yoga classes offered where we are staying.  I see a pattern:  the lack of props, the lack of modifications to poses, the auto-pilot, one-size fits all instruction.  Never have I seen a class of strangers be asked if they've ever taken a yoga class before, never has a teacher offered to adjust or help a student, only minimal suggestions are offered for modified poses.  It seems to me those are basic minimums to meet when teaching a resort yoga class.  

On my current vacation I decided to go to a "yoga in the sand" class.  We started in standing poses, which included lots of lateral stretching and then twisting.  Then we did some arm stretches and a few standing backbends.  We did a half-forward fold and were told to keep our chins up and look across the circle and smile at the person in front of us.  (There were many admonishments to keep head lifted, chin up in many poses.  Ouch.)  Finally we were able to do a full forward fold to release our backs (she called it "decompressing").  Then it was down on our knees to Child's Pose, which is what she said, but it was actually Hero's Pose she was demonstrating, so I was confused but maybe the names are interchangeable?  (I don't think so.)  She had us raise up to "Cobra", but it was actually Locust she demonstrated, so again I was a bit confused.  We then went into a long, long hold in Pigeon where she had us take many twists to each side.  The two moves seemed mutually exclusive to my body, so I stopped twisting in Pigeon.  My leg started tingling so I also just stopped being in Pigeon at all, even though she encouraged all to breath through the whatever sensations we might feel.  This was the first mention of the breath related to a pose.  

We did some Down Dogs and Up Dogs and Warrior II and Side Angle and Chair and Chair with Twists, and Crescent Lunge and more lying on our bellies in Cobra (for real this time), before she said we could now take a Savasana pose on our bellies.  Belly? That was a first for me.  But in fairness she offered that on our backs would be OK too.  After about 2 minutes in "rest pose" she told us to start stretching and moving our bodies from side to side and then sit up and take a few twists to each side.  Then it was time to meditate.  "First, take a deep breath, roll your shoulders up and back,  place your arms at your sides, palms up, and clear your mind."  Two minutes later she said Namaste and we were finished.  

She did the entire practice along with us, often unable to even see the class due to her head being down or smashed against her mat or eyes closed, but that didn't stop her from constantly saying, "Good job!" after almost every pose. Not sure how she knew we were performing so well, but maybe a sixth sense?  I don't have that yet.

I apologize to you who have no idea how to analyze this practice, but as I said at the beginning, I am now an expert. Let me just say that there is so much here that is the opposite of what we are learning in teacher training that any sister yogini students who read this will have a field day with it.  Not all teachers teach the same way; there are many variations that can work.  But we are learning the from the best and most attentive teachers and I am already biased, I admit.  Starting in standing poses is OK, not ideal according to some.  Breathing is important, inhale and exhale come on certain sides of the poses,  keeping your chin up and neck pinched is ouch-y and dangerous at times, lateral bends and twists should be followed by a pose that releases the low back and brings the body into center alignment.  Back bends should be done after adequately warming up the body to do them safely and again a release is called for afterward.  One might want the occasional reminder to engage the core, especially in strong poses like Crescent Lunge (quite a few "fails" there).  I didn't know about Belly Savasana, so I looked it up.  It's a thing, but generally with a bajillion props so it can be a cushy restorative pose.  What I do know is that "clear your mind" is impossible for almost everyone.

So, as I've ably demonstrated here, I am well on my way to sitting back and watching yoga teachers  try to lead a class.  As for my own teaching style, I'm sure it will be excellent, but you will never know because there is no way I'd allow anyone the chance to do to me what I just did to this resort yoga teacher!  (Kidding.)  

Yes, I do feel like I was a little mean with this post.  I may be completely off base.  Remember what I said about a little knowledge and no experience?  I saw a lot in this class that I would like to ask her about..."why this and not that?", etc.  We all have much to learn from each other, especially smart-alecky know-it-alls, as can be proven by the excellent feedback I'm getting on my homework!   

So, while I sort of picked it apart, the yoga in the sand class still got me moving, stretching, and breathing to the rhythm of the waves.  Can't beat that.  Plus, she shared that today is the Spring Equinox and we could expect to start "buzzing" with intense energy around 2:30 this afternoon.  I didn't feel it, but maybe its a time zone thing.  If you felt it, good job!

Namaste, donnajurene

Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com

BLOG TRICKS AND TIPS

Well, hello!  This post is a little "housekeeping" reminder to readers who may be new or need a refresher course on how best to interact with this blog.

1.  SUBJECT INDEX: After several years of writing, there are a lot of posts to this blog.  Many, from some years ago, likely go unread at this point, or impossible to find.  Well, there's lots of good stuff in there and here's an easy way to find a post that might be interesting, helpful, or entertaining....

For desktop and laptop users, you will see a column on the left with "Subject Index" near the top.  (Device readers will see this also if you go to the Web Version of the blog).  Click on this and voila!   You will see an index of every blog post by broad category so you can find posts that pertain to that subject.  I especially direct newbie beginners to check this out to find acknowledgement and encouragement!  (P.S.  I do not know why the links are different colors and some are hard to see.  I've tried and tried to fix this.  If you are more techie than I about the glitches in Blogger, please help!)

2.  EMAIL ALERTS: If you would like to receive an email alert each time a new post is up, you can sign up with your email account and it will sent to you.  Easy, breezy, and never miss a post.  You will not be inundated -- only 2-3 per month.

3.  FOLLOWERS/COMMENTS:  Bloggers live for feedback, which is typically very sparse, unfortunately.  If you are so moved, you can register as a Follower of the blog.  Click on the Follow box in the left hand column, follow the instructions, and you will be officially a Follower, which makes it super easy to leave a comment at the end of each post.  I will even comment on your comment!

4.  REACTION BOXES:  OK.  You'd rather not be a Follower, but you do have some thoughts, feelings, reactions to the post.  You can easily let me know your reaction by clicking on a "Reaction Box" at the end of the blog post.   You will not be identified, but I'll know someone read and responded.  Yay!

5.  DATA:  I never see any information about specific readers, unless  you leave comments and even then I only see the name you registered with which may not be your actual full name.  I get data about how many readers per month stopped by, what browser program they used (as if I care) and what country they are from (weird how many are from outside the US!)  So, you are anonymous if you like that sort of thing and actually I do, because I try to protect my privacy online as much as possible.  Just FYI in case you were wondering about what I can see and about whom.

I absolutely love writing the Yoga Circle blog (as well as my personal blog "My View From Here", which you can find by clicking on the link on Circling the Mat), and I especially love knowing what I say resonates with others.  If you know me and sometimes offer any verbal, email, or FB feedback -- THANK YOU!  Happy Reading.  Happy Yoga-ing©

Namaste, donnajurene

Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com