Friday Fun Times

Travelling

Okay, so I'm the one travelling not you.

Well, maybe you.

If you are, best of luck to you!

In any case, here's a video for Monday: one of my absolute favorite yoga routines from Kathryn Budig and Yoga Journal.

I'd say it's fine for anyone who's an adventurous beginner or beyond; you may want to have a strap or a block (or two) handy just in case.

The Pleasures of Sitting Down

This month has been rough for me and my meditation practice. Things haven't been going well between us: I got a new job which always kicks my over-achiever self into over-drive (see what I did there? Clever, no? No, you're right, not really) and I got sick. It's very hard to be disciplined enough to do any amount of sitting on a daily basis when the simple act of inhaling turns your sinuses into...well, not to put you off your dinner or anything so we'll just say into a very painful place. Not to mention the fact that, I don't know about you, but when I'm sick, if I can drag myself to work and back when I get home, the last thing on Earth I want to do is anything that isn't sleeping. Or dozing. Or napping. Or just lying down in general, really. Lying down = good.

The downside of all this, of course, is that I lose 5-20 minutes a day which help to focus and clear me after the day or, if I'm very lucky and got up early, for the rest of the day. That's not a good thing. When I was sitting regularly, I was having better days. It was easier to take criticism; easier to keep my temper; just generally...easier.

So my goal for next month is to get back into my regular practice and one of the ways I aim to do this is to start visiting one of these two sites regularly again.

The Abhayagiri Monastery in Redwood Valley, California, is kind enough to tape the dharma talks given by visiting teachers and the resident monks and make them available online. I've listened to most of the teachers listed on here, but my two favorites are Ajahn Amaro and Ajahn Sucitto. Ajahn Amaro is one of my meditation teacher/acupuncturist's teachers and he's told me some great stories about listening to talks in person. On a less spiritual level, I have to say that I love the Ajahn's voice and his sense of humor. He's English; it's dry; it's all good. Buddhist philosophy is extra-wonderful when it comes with jokes about Marmite and Monty Python. Ajahn Sucitto, equally, has a wonderful speaking voice and a great sense of how to bring daily examples into his talks.

The other site I visit regularly is Dharmaseed.org. They also archive talks by a variety of teachers and I have spent less time exploring here, but I have had a great time listening to Rodney Smith and Bhante Gunaratana. Smith is another teacher I found through my teacher who has worked with him in the past and I think his sense of humor and passion really come through in his talks. He claims to be a "one note dharma teacher," but I don't think that's true: or if it is only "one note," it's a very...flexible note. Bhante Gunaratana I originally found through his books -- a post for another time -- but his talks are also excellent. I would caution you, though: when I downloaded a couple of his talks I found they were incomplete and there was a "Part 2" or "Part 3" on the website that wasn't clearly redirected from the original part. So check the titles carefully!

Anxiety*

No, I'm not suggesting you should be anxious right now.

It's Saturday -- you should kick back with your favorite beverage at hand (personally, I favor coffee), some nice music playing -- or perhaps Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! is on? -- and scroll lazily through your RSS feeds, pausing to close your eyes and doze at key moments -- like when you get to something boring. If you have a pet, perhaps you could stroke it at random intervals...unless it's a turtle or an iguana or something. In which case, it's probably not quite such a stroke'y situation. Maybe a grape would be welcome, though.

No, today, I've got a brief book review for you of Yoga for Anxiety, by a husband-and-wife team, Mary and Rick NurrieStearns. As you can see from the author line above, Mary, at least, is a certified counsellor and many of the personal narratives in the book come either from her patients or from personal experience, both hers and Rick's.

This is a pretty helpful little volume. For, me I found the last few chapters -- the yoga poses and everything else to the end -- to be the most interesting and useful. The yoga poses are beautifully illustrated with black and white photographs although the instructions for getting in and out of poses might be a bit sketchy; I have bad luck following flow instructions in books anyway! The meditation instructions are really good -- clear, unpretentious, very straightforward.

Will the book confirm your suspicion that yoga and meditative practice will help anxiety (diagnosed or otherwise)? Yes. Will it give you horror stories about people whose anxiety is 1000x worse than yours? Oh, yes. Does it sometimes have weird evangelical Christian overtones? Yes; those are kind of awkward moments.

I think the authors are, laudably, trying to broaden their potential audience as much as possible; perhaps they are evangelical Christians themselves, I have no idea. I've rather specifically avoided finding out, to be honest. And I know yoga can have a kind of rocky road for Christians, particularly those of a more evangelical/conservative persuasion, because of the perceived "religiosity" of the practice. I think this is a fascinating question and, were I better informed, I'm sure I could go on at length about it, but I'm not, so I won't. I prefer to think that the NurrieStearns's aim is to try and reach the widest possible audience of people for whom these techniques could be helpful and that's pretty much everyone because I know very few people who don't at least get a little anxious before making a speech. They draw examples and inspiration from anywhere they can: if it calms your nerves to repeat that God loves you, they're happy with that; if you'd rather chant om, they're happy with that, too.

My real quibble with the book is how much time is spent right up front -- the first third or so of the book -- i an outline of types of anxiety and what feels to me like a kind of self-diagnosis guide for anxiety disorders. I get fidgety around that sort of thing because I think it can play into a variety of personal issues and when it comes to something that's as potentially serious as a mental health issue like anxiety, it's important to get an outside view, preferably a professional outside view. It's like going to a doctor to get a sprained wrist taken care of; yeah, you probably know what you did; yeah, you probably know what to do for it; but in order to get it taken care of in a way that will let it heal well, it might be a good idea to ask someone whose job it is to make it better.

There are a lot of journal prompts and "reflect on your answers to these questions" and "return to the entry you wrote for the prompt XXX and consider YYY." I didn't find those prompts that useful and it would have been nice to have a few more "and if you find yourself freaking out before you have a chance to write this journal entry, try this" ideas. I'm also not a huge journalizing-type person; I used to be, but I'm not now for a whole variety of reasons none of which are pertinent here. If you are a regular journaler (journalist? journaler...? I don't know. If you write a freakin' journal!), then these prompts might be absolutely fantastic for you and I'd urge you to check the book out and have a go.

Once they do get down to brass tacks, so to speak, the tacks are really useful: actual everyday techniques for use on the spot, so to speak. And constant reassurance that this is a process: some things will be useful; some won't. Some days you will love your practice; some days you will want to throw it out the window. Keep at it; keep trying; keep coming back.

 *Disclaimer: I am not a yoga teacher. I hold no certifications. All opinions here are only my own and only opinions and should be taken as such.

Off-the-Mat Reading

I've decided to expand my blogging realm a little.

With the encouragement of a couple of friends, I'm looking forward to doing some regular blogging about yoga (which I love*) and history (which I also love). I still want to keep writing about Doctor Who and the other genre stuff that makes it worthwhile to get out of bed in the mornings, but I figure the occasional Saturday post about "something else" can't hurt, right?

So I thought a nice way to start out would be to spread the blog love around a little.

After all the time I spent last weekend talking smack about Yoga Journal, I figured it was only fair to point out at least one of the things they do very well: blogs. They have some fantastic bloggers and one of my favorites is Kristin Shepherd at Beginner's Mind. Shepherd is a chiropractor and a newbie yogi. At least, she was when she started but the blog is at least a year old at this point -- at least in my memory it is! -- so she isn't that newbie any more. But her enthusiasm for "all things yoga" -- most recently her investigations into the wonders of meditation -- is infectious; she is consistently respectful to her reading audience; and she is never jargon-heavy or pretentious. These are valuable assets in a yoga blogger! Plus, her columns are short, readable, and great for a little midday "why do I do this thing with the colorful mat again?" moment.

Curvy Yoga is one of my favorite blog finds for the past few weeks; I found it because of Anna's fantastic post about the same YJ article I was grumping about. Her's is slightly more...controlled than mine, shall we say, and far more like an actual, reasonable letter. :) What else is to like about the blog? The inclusive tone, consistent respect and friendliness, a desire to see everyone in a position to enjoy a fruitful yoga practice if they want to. And she recommends at least one of my favorite yoga clothing retailers (Athleta, if you must know. And, yes, I know they're really owned by Old Navy or The Gap or something else atrocious but their pants are so damned comfy!) Anna's a certified yoga teacher; she's going through further training with Sadie Nardini who also rocks (and whose blog is temporarily down as of this posting; go to that link and poke at the "Blog" tab until it works -- she's well-worth a read, too!) What is not to like about Curvy Yoga? I have more or less let myself get psyched out of going to studios; I comfort myself with the thought that most teachers seem to say that regular home practice is just as, if not more, beneficial than a 90 minute "kick your ass" session once a week at a studio; that studios are expensive; that I can't afford the time out of my week (even though I probably could). All of these reasons are sort of true -- but I really love that there are folks like Anna out there who don't let themselves get psyched out. That's just awesome.

Not last or least, Spoiled Yogi. How can you not love a blog that has posts like "Just Say No--To Yoga Guilt!" And lookie here! Guest posts from Anna over at Curvy Yoga. :) Anyway, the Spoiled Yogi spotlights lots of guest bloggers and her own posts are always thoughtful and engaging. Do you have trouble springing right out of bed into that blissful morning sun salutation we all hear we should be salivating to do? Yup, so does she. And, like Kristin Shepherd, she's exploring meditation these days. And look! She's looking for folks to talk about how/why/where/when they got into yoga.

Last and still not least: Y is for Yogini. Irreverent? Tongue-in-cheek? Snarky? Oh, my friend: yes. A healthy dose of irreverence is at least as important as a well-balanced downdog. I'm not saying don't be serious about your practice -- I don't think Lo is saying that either -- but don't let your sense of humor die every time you step on the mat. The only problem with this blog is that the RSS feed isn't working properly so it won't load into a reader -- like Google Reader or Bloglines -- correctly. If anyone comes up with a fix for this or sees something I didn't, please let me know! I've been keeping it open in a separate tab in Chrome for a few weeks now, but there has to be a better long-term solution than that!

 *Disclaimer: I am not a yoga teacher. I hold no certifications. All opinions here are only my own and only opinions and should be taken as such.

"Risk being okay with where your body is right now."

I don't know what it's like where you are but here in Boston it's a cold Saturday morning and Anna and I are off to a day-long yoga/meditation workshop at North End Yoga. (If you live in Boston and you're looking for a place to practice, they aren't cheap but are cheap-ish and the space is beautiful. I really recommend anything taught by Sarah Sturges. She is made of awesome.)

So I hope you're having a lovely weekend but since it's cold out -- lets all enjoy a little righteous irritation, shall we?

I'll admit it -- I read Yoga Journal. Sometimes this gets me derisory looks; a couple of my yoga/meditation buddies have made comments to the effect that "I can't stand that magazine any more" or "I just can't read that -- how can you?" Most of the time, I advocate for my reading material and I feel justified in doing this. YJ and I have had an on-again/off-again relationship for about ten years now. I started reading it back when I was fresh out of college and just getting interested in yoga at the behest of my then-girlfriend (who I now realise probably had ulterior motives coming out the wazoo, but we're not here to discuss that right now.) Back then, YJ made me feel awful: the models made me feel inflexible and fat; I didn't understand the jargon; the philosophy passed me by (although I thought it looked awful nice); and the recipes left me cold. So I gave up. Not the yoga; just the magazine.

Tree pose without a tree in sight!

I rediscovered it on an impulse buy about three years ago and have had a steady subscription for the past two years. When I picked up that second "first time" issue, I'd gained confidence in my practice. Yeah, the models still made me feel a bit inflexible and podgy but -- hell, who wouldn't feel inflexible and podgy looking at these folks? and I regularly saw letters from other people expressing the same opinions and the models seemed to get a bit more...normal looking. There were even folks of color and the occasional guy which was just awesome. The jargon no longer either left me cold or confuzzled; having been to a few studio sessions and had a regular home practice for about two years, I knew what they were talking about. Even better, I knew how what they were talking about felt: I knew how good that hip-opener felt; I knew how awesome it was to lie back in shavasana when you thought you weren't going to make it through that last vinyasa; and I knew how great it was to finally not fall out of Tree.

I'm not a "find a community" kind of person; I don't go looking for groups of folks who are like-minded because, honestly, I don't expect to find them and I don't know if I'd want to hang out with a room full of people who think the same way I do! I like hanging out with folks who push my buttons every now and then and agree on the important things -- Doctor Who is awesome; Spuffy need never have happened; and John Barrowman is candylicious -- and we can argue the rest out later. Still, I was glad to have YJ show up crammed in my mailbox every few weeks as a reminder that there was a larger yogic community in which I could be more involved if I wanted.

Until this month. This month, I happened to flip open my February 2011 YJ and find the article under the heading "eating wisely" (hardeharharhar) called "Measure for Measure," by a regular contributer named Dayna Macy. Now, apparently this short article -- only probably two pages if not split up by ads -- is an excerpt from a larger book by Ms. Macy called Ravenous. If there were any justice in the world, she would have been forced to call it If You're Not Skinny, Don't Show Up at My Studio: or, My Happy Journey to Obsession.

I read the last few paragraphs of the article first because I have, like my father, a habit of flipping through all publications from back to front. Don't ask why; I don't know. And I came across this little gem:

"Weeks, then months, pass. I begin to lose weight--5 pounds, 10 pounds, then 20, then more. I start buying clothes one size, then two sizes, smaller. Yoga poses that were once extremely difficult become more possible, and more fun." 

And I'm thinking, "Wait. This sounds just like all those crap women's magazines I don't read because, well, they sound like this. This sounds like my coworkers when they're having a bad day and I wish my MP3 player went up louder. This sounds....awful." Lose weight and do yoga better? like some kind of magic formula? Uh -- no, no, I think not.

So I flip back to the beginning of the article and read the whole thing. Twice. Then I find Anna and make her read it just to make sure I'm not crazy.

Editors of YJ, why? What were you thinking? This is the worst possible advocation of weight loss that I have ever read and I've read some doozies. If this is an excerpt from the book and the rest of the book is like this it should instantaneously be remaindered in order to avoid bolstering the incorrect, self-harming thinking of thousands of people suffering from eating disorders! What were you thinking? Publishing an article like this, that implicitly says, "If you are overweight, yoga is not for you -- you won't do it right" is an insult to those of us who don't look like your cover model.

Crow pose. No crows, I know. Disappointing.

If I dropped 20 pounds, could I do some yoga poses more easily? Yeah, I'm sure I could. You know what would also make it easier? If my left wrist wasn't shot from years of typing and handwriting. If my back didn't give out on me at odd moments. If I hadn't sprained my left ankle three times in eight months. And if I didn't get intensely nauseated in inverted poses due to some long-term inner ear problems. Are you or your author going to suggest that I should stop doing yoga because I will probably never do a perfect arm balance? I sure as hell hope not -- because I'd have absolutely no intention of listening to you. So I can't do shoulder balances; so I can't do a perfect Crow: so what? Patanjali isn't going to appear out of my mat and bitch-slap me.

And, yes, I read the additional interview with Ms. Macy that went up on the YJ site a few days later and, no, I have no intention of reading her full book to find out what the "full" story is because, frankly, I don't care. The excerpt was so profoundly offputting that I can only say I hope she has found fulfillment through her chosen path and I hope no-one else does.

On the upside, I can say that in reading the rest of the magazine -- which I did after waiting a few days to calm down -- I found nothing else quite so horrific. There was a great article on meditation by Sally Kempton; some neat stuff about car rentals; and a nifty little alignment/anatomy article about twisting triangle and your knees. (My knees hate twisting triangle; I don't know about you -- I wish you happier knees!)

There was also a few page feature on the YJ 21 Day Challenge. For those of you who don't know about it: it's exactly what it sounds like: 21 days of free yoga routines, meditation and pranayama audios, and recipes from YJ, all online, to help bolster or create your home practice. I've been cherrypicking routines from there since the 10th and some of them are really awesome; I've also discovered two new teachers, Rebecca Urban and Elise Lorimer, who I dearly hope have done standalone DVDs 'cause they are just fantastic stuff.

Anyway, in the midst of the little puff piece -- and it is a puff piece, pretty self-admittedly -- there's a interview with Jason Crandell, one of the teachers who is doing routines for the Challenge:

[What if you're] Too chubby? [the interviewer asks]

"If you're letting your weight keep you off the mat, you've got a self-esteem issue," he says. "Ignoring your body won't help; doing skillful things with your body in an asana practice will make it easier to nurture the kind of body you have now."

Well, thank heaven the teachers are smarter than the editors.

Edit: In all editorial fairness, I have to say that neither Anna nor myself made it to the workshop. A late-breaking anxiety attack on my part and girlfriendly sympathy on Anna's part prevented both our attendances. I still think the studio is awesome; I do suggest you check it out; and I'm sorry I can't give a more positive review of the whole thing 'cause I wasn't there!