Week 5: An Energetics Washout

A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted the focus of my final Pilot Program class to be the energetic body.  This started with me toying with the idea of having a color focus (Everyone think about the color yellow) and grew into one of the more esoteric aspects of yoga:  a chakra meditation.  Wouldn't that be fun??  My home studio is O2 Yoga, a place whose motto is "Up Dog, Down Dog, No Dogma." You don't go to O2 to talk about your feelings or release emotion from your tight hips -- you go to practice asanas or postures -- you go to achieve a physical center, not for a therapy session.  Of course, anyone who practices yoga on a regular basis will likely tell you that you have emotional or psychological experiences even if that's not what the teacher is cuing you to do, but a studio like O2 lets students explore that less tangible result on an individual basis.  That doesn't mean that we don't do our fair share of oming or engage mudras (or spiritual/energetic seals) -- we certainly do -- but students aren't forced to battle demons on their mats. Just show up, do your practice to the best of your ability, and see ya next time.  It's something I appreciate as a yoga student -- my practice is truly my own that way.

While Sarah B and I were doing our teacher training, however, we did participate in a two-hour class/workshop at O2 that focused on the energetic body -- and part of that class was the before-mentioned chakra meditation.  Chakras are believed to be the centers in the body that generate our auras.  Literally translating from Sanskrit as "wheels," these invisible beams of light project out and swirl together to make us who we are.  I really loved this class -- a standout for me in teacher training -- and thought it might work as a nice compliment to Dedication Yoga's premise of focusing each practice on a specific goal.

As soon as I made this decision, it seemed like the universe got right in my face with all kinds of chakra talk.  A dear friend of mine was about to embark on a teacher training of her own with Kripalu's JourneyDance, a chakra-centric, empowering-your-inner-goddess dance form, and the day before she set out, we were lost in conversation about energy and how it's shared and how the impact is felt.  Shortly after that, a group of friends learned about the healing power of Shamballa, whose main belief is the power of love.  And then after that I attended my first Kundalini class, a yoga practice that is 100% in line with aligning your chakras to reach a state of enlightenment.  It was a very unusual and unforgettable couple of days.

And in case you're curious, I took an online quiz once and learned I was 47% hippie.  So that means that 53% of me leaned over these conversations and experiences with a skeptical eye.  I don't live my life by any of these philosophies or ideals -- but I find them interesting and conversation-worthy.  And I was VERY excited to share the chakra concept with the Dedication Yoga community.

Then Sunday morning arrived -- and it was raining.  The sky was heavy and gray and so was my attitude.  I had so looked forward to this -- I had gushed about it to so many people -- and now it was all ruined (cue the dramatic music).  I got up anyway and cut through Prospect Hill Park on my way to class at O2 and deemed the ground a little wet but not a total swamp, so I sighed and wondered what it would be like a few hours when it was class time.  To cancel class or not to cancel class -- that became the question.  I was so incredibly bummed.

But that's the best time to get on my mat -- when I feel defeated.  Yoga brings me back to myself, it revs me up, it reminds me.  So after an incredibly stellar practice, I left O2 and felt bouncy and hopeful -- the sky was still full of clouds but perhaps lightening in color and the rain had stopped.  It was even warmer.  So I called Sarah B and said I would go to the hill and see who came.  

There were just three of us-- one student, Sarah B, and me -- but we practiced anyway under that relentlessly gray sky.  I opted to save the chakra mediation for another time when the sun was in attendance and, instead, let the two students choose their own focus.  It was actually very lovely to have such a small group and my students were both so in-sync, it was beautiful to watch and instruct them.  And when the asana part of class was over, both students asked for time to write -- something that literally warmed my heart.  And afterwards as the three of us sat and shared a meal and talked about our lives, the sun came out, even if just for a few minutes.

I guess it was a class on energetics after all.

The light in me honors the light in you --

Sarah W.

Being Present

Sarah B. taught Week 4 where the theme was being present, using the mantra "I Am/Here Now."  This is what I wrote!

- Sarah W.

Sarah said something during class today that I made a mental note to remember and then promptly forgot.  That's how brilliance works sometimes.  Subtly. Invading the bloodstream as anonymous cells that keep things moving.  I know what she said was a play on words about being in the moment.  The Dependable Now.  That's not it, though.  Someday it'll manifest itself as a thought in my head and I'll think of Sarah and smile, perhaps without fully understanding why.

Take right now.  I have Kelly Clarkson's voice in my head singing, "I forgive you, I forgive me.  Now do I start feeling again?"  What brings this song to my head?  Why these words on relentless repeat on a beautiful day on a hill overlooking the city, surrounded by the peace bestowed by yoga?  This is my moment.  This is how it's being absorbed by my bloodstream.  A murmur of conversation floats nearby and I think of earlier when Sarah and I walked around administering savasana adjustments on the group as a family of five wandered by, their conversation replaced by slack-jawed staring as they solemnly strolled by our concluding practice.  They didn't know what they were witnessing, but they knew enough to witness it without the laughter and competitive hear me hear me hear me tone of voice they'd used only moments before passing by.  Intuition plays an instrumental role in defining now, even for people who are out with an intention different than your own.  There can be solidarity in this gray space, this fleeting moment.

For me, it's a song about forgiveness.  If I went around and asked every practioner, a different answer would be given.  It adds perspective to this place.

There is a subtle influence in the way we breathe and how that breath is inevitably mingled.  There is a lesson being learned, even if we don't know what it is until later.  

Week 3 -- All About Balance

 I chose balance as the theme for this week's class for a number of reasons.  Most cosmetically, I'd had a series of conversations with one of our regular Dedication Yoga participants about his work towards finding balance in his own life and through that dialogue, I started to think about balance in my own life and how I worked towards achieving it.  The answer, for me, traced easily back to my yoga practice.  So it seemed like a good focus for class, both in a literal and more interpretive sense.  I asked students to think "Yellow Sun" on the inhale and "Grey Moon" on the exhale -- stark contrasts between day and night, hot and cold, vibrant and dull.  And what is in the middle to even those ends of the spectrum out?  Why, today's practice, of course.

During the writing time, I wrote this piece about why balance that I would like to share.

I chose the theme of balance for today's class because it's fundamental to a strong practice of yoga but also to a strong grounding in life.  Being able to stand in tree pose for an hour is only beneficial if I can do so on the other side as well.  Otherwise, why do it?  If there is anything I've learned from yoga, it's that achieving the same effort on both sides yields a practice that's both physically and mentally rewarding.  Catering to your "more flexible side" isn't doing anyone any favors.  You should be considering why the less flexible side is so and how you might work to bring the two sides to the same level.  And you should also feel free to read into this as metaphor.  I thought about the differences between day and night (yellow sun, grey moon) and how these extremes can equal vastly different aspects of life -- different personalities, even.  Professional versus recreational.  Sober versus intoxicated.  Calm versus rowdy.  We all house the capabilities of being these extremes.  Through the practice of yoga, I have seen a change in how I approach these external things.  It is clearer to me what is necessary and what is not and how to best spend my time.  Yoga pushes me to be In This Moment Only for a manageable length of time ("This will be a seventy-five minute intermediate class...") and then frees me to try and apply that momentum to life off my mat.  Much like yoga is the stepping stone towards mediation, it is also the reverse -- it's the guide to stabilizing what is likely a chaotic or unfocused life.  Yoga is all of these things in one.  It is what balances me most of all.

Thanks again to everyone who's come to practice with us. 

Namaste

Sarah W.

Second Time Out at Prospect Hill

Sarah W. taught DY last week, and although I was nervous about attendance and how people would react to the practice, overall the pressure was off. After all, I wasn't in charge! She had to remember the sequence. She had to keep her lefts and rights straight. She had to speak clearly. I was able to participate as much or as little as I wanted to, and despite feeling a bit tentative, I wound up enjoying demonstrating and adjusting.

As this week's class approached, however, I started to tense up. My right-hand woman (Sarah W., obviously! keep up, kids) was away visiting family, so I wasn't able to cue her through the class and get feedback. I coerced two loyal friends into being guinea pigs for an abbreviated version of DY, and although nothing went grossly wrong, I left their house feeling inadequate. Yoga teachers--any experienced teachers, really--making teaching look easy. But the truth of the matter is that teaching is very different from practicing, and it's extremely difficult. It takes a lot of thought and preparation, and no matter how many times you go over the class in your head (and believe me, I put in some hours), you don't really know what a class is going to be like until you get there.

Today was a beautiful, sunny, and HOT July day. I had my doubts about how many people would actually show up. But when I got to Prospect Hill a half hour before class started, Sarah W. and two friendly yoginis were already there waiting. As it got closer to noon, more people arrived. A woman I went to college with who I hadn't seen in years surprised me by showing up, with a bright orange mat and an awesome attitude. A couple I met just last week, one of whom has trouble bending his knees, pulled up their mats and jumped right in. I don't know what the final head count was, but there were more than 10 students by noon, and they all made the experience positive.

It was a focused group, but the atmosphere was chill. People laughed and smiled. Some of them even pretended to laugh at my jokes (and they all took pity on me and ignored the fact that I had sunscreen dripping into my eyes and looked like I was crying for a good portion of the hour class).

We dedicated our practice to ahimsa, the concept of doing no harm in the world. It's a way of interacting with people and our environment, but it's also internal. You can practice ahimsa by having compassion for yourself. I think we all did that in our practice today. The students had compassion for the me as a new teacher (they didn't get frustrated when I missed a part of the sequence and backtracked), and for themselves as students (they didn't sigh or give up when they couldn't "land" a pose, something you see more frequently in yoga than you'd think).

I think the physical setting (the park), the tone of the class (instructive but not too serious), and the fact that we focus on a specific concept (the dedication) are all factors that come together to build a unique sense of community. Getting an ID card in the mail that pronounced me an official RYT didn't make me feel like I was a teacher. It really took everyone coming out today to DY and practicing with me and Sarah W. to feel like this teaching thing is real. That's an incredible feeling. I am very thankful for it, and I can't wait until next Sunday, and the Sunday after that.

Namaste, yogis.

-Sarah B

Pilot Program, Take One!

Today, the "studio" was a hot-and-sweaty ninety-plus degrees but with a lovely breeze and a wide blue sky above -- perfect for the start of our Dedication Yoga pilot program.  We had six practioners of varying skill levels join us for the one hour practice plus twenty minutes of writing on Prospect Hill in Somerville, Mass.  For those of you who don't know, this spot offers a gorgeous view of the Boston skyline.  Sarah and I had snuck up there last week to do a trial run and I'd been pleasantly surprised by how quiet and peaceful that corner of Somerville turned out to be.  Today was no different as our students arrived with yoga mats and water bottles in hand.  Sarah and I decided to rotate teaching, so I was on deck for the first class (she'll take the reins next week).  As I taught, Sarah did some adjusting as well as demonstrating and before either of us knew it, I was cuing the group into savasana, the final resting posture.  Then everyone found a spot in the shade (or if they were crazy like me, in the sun) and got to work writing or drawing about this week's dedication, the mantra "I am/here now."  Even though I taught, I opted to write as well, finding myself writing a few poems, a genre that I love but rarely write these days.  

Here are some samples of what I wrote:

Untitled Poem 

A conversation for another day:

sparks fly off of rooftops,

nerves frayed and worn.

What could complete this cycle?

What could seal this fate?

I sit in the full stare

of the sun, shining with hard 

earned sweat, and I barely remember

the cold of winter as the welcome

breeze strolls by.  Here, I am face to face

with bees at work and I think

how pretty the weeds are, even, on this day.

I know there's a change in season

and a time for it all to be so clear,

but as I flick away the buzzing

near my ear, I don't even pretend to care

about what will come when it will come

Prospect Hill

It's a sleepy hill and an active town --

why, just down these cement steps

is a square full of bars and cars with people

in them.  Seems funny here, though,

where the only sound is a flag flapping

in the breeze and the occasional song

from a bird.  It's like they all forgot 

about this place.  But I never could.

Some prose:

I haven't written poetry for a few months now.  I'm all about fiction these days.  But the idea of "I am/here now" draws my focus to lyric verses and line breaks and well cadenced word choices.  Poetry for me is about simultaneously looking out and looking in.  It is simple and reflective.  It's creating a life that's already established, just making it arty.  Fiction writing is a labor of love -- it's starting from scratch -- it's building flesh and bone from the first dividing cell.  So when I decided to focus on fiction this year, I subsequently lost sight of poetry.  I barely write it anymore.  My creativity is already stretched so thin.  But when asking a class to think about the phrase "I am/here now," it brings my mind immediately to poetry.  It brings me into my verse.

Today was simply amazing.  Thank you to everyone who came out and who shared their practice, their art, and their time with us.  We'll see you next week.

Namaste,

Sarah W.

Experimenting with DY in Costa Rica

This is the view from the open air yoga studio at The Yoga Farm in Punta Banco, Costa Rica, where I traveled last week to learn about, well, yoga and farming. Punta Banco is a small community located about 10 hours south (by car or bus) from San Jose. There are less than 200 residents in this rainforest-beach paradise. It is one of the most remote, rural regions of the country. Computers and cell phones are out of place or inaccessible. There is no multi-tasking. Life is simple. 

Most days me and my fellow traveler rose at dawn, awakened by macaws, toucans, and the Farm's rooster. We'd change our clothes (or not - "clean clothing" is a relative term when you're living in the rainforest), tie back our mosquito nets so that no bugs got trapped in during the day, wash our faces at the outdoor sink, and skip upstairs to the yoga deck. The main structure on the Farm looks a little bit like a grown-up's fantasy tree house. It is set at a high elevation in the rainforest, and from the deck, where people spend hours reading and listening to music on hammocks during the day, you can see all the way out to the ocean below. Monkeys swing from the trees and birds call out to each other. Bright red/pink hibiscus and deep greens of all kinds surround. 

The teacher-in-residence at the Farm was blissfully open-minded, experimenting each class with different forms of yoga. Everything from Yin to Ashtanga (sometimes in the same class). I had been trained to teach in a very specific way, and witnessing someone whose teaching style was so broad was very, very cool (at least dorky-yoga-teacher cool)! When someone interrupted class to point at a monkey, she reacted with a smile, turning her gaze too rather than getting flustered by the interruption. Class had no rules, and I felt no judgment or pressure. After the first day, I decided I wanted to teach during my stay. I shared the idea of DY with the other yogis, and it was greeted with enthusiasm.

The first morning I taught, I was completely unprepared (I hang my head in shame as I write this, Sarah W, I really do!). I just took my printout of Sarah's class upstairs to the deck and did the best I could to explain the concept and improvise, looking down every so often at her notes, not necessarily knowing myself where the sequence would lead! My four students were troopers, doing their best to follow along, and journaling and drawing after the practice. Holland, who I went to the Farm with, shared her drawing, inspired by the surroundings (sorry, I am too jet-lagged to figure out how to rotate this photo).

Despite the fact that the class was less than perfect, I was inspired enough to try again. The second time, I created my own class (instead of using Sarah W's). I felt more comfortable teaching something I created, and one of the women on the farm let me do a test run with her in preparation. I had fallen down a hill that felt like a mountain and been "attacked" by an angry wasp the day before, but I still felt good about DY Take 2. In fact, because my hand hurt too much to demonstrate all the poses, I was forced to move around the floor more. I managed to remember some adjustments, andit was a much more fluid class.

One of the yogis had suggested DY would be more effective if students wrote down a phrase before the class started (which I hadn't thought to instruct them to do the first time), so I had them do that. They reported after class that they had found it helpful, and most could maintain the connection from the beginning at the end during the drawing/writing portion. They gave me positive feedback. They all knew I was a green teacher, so perhaps some of the feedback was couched in kinder terms than the teaching deserved, but I think we all at least enjoyed practicing. And Holland drew something that sent shivers up my spine. She wrote some beautiful prose as well, but it felt private, so I didn't photograph it. 

My experience in Costa Rica, both experimenting with teaching DY and living in a community of open, honest and kind individuals, reminded me that yoga is not just about the asanas. Yoga is a way of life, a lens through which you can see the world. And there is no one "right" way to see it. Perfectionist that I can be, this was a revelation, something that hadn't truly sunk in during my 200 hours of training. But the best revelations, I find, are those that you subconsciously meditate on, and come to slowly.

I am really looking forward to taking this mindset into the DY pilot. We'll all be there to learn from each other, and not just to experience yoga, but to experience simplicity, being present, and building a community. In New England, it's easy to become bitter and jaded. People elbow you in the subway, they cut you in line, they look away on the street. I think it's really important to counter that by coming together with people you trust and enjoy spending time with. 

I hope all you brave yogis coming to the pilot for DY will find it a useful counterbalance to the busy, hectic lives we all lead. There won't be a tree house or an ocean view, but Prospect Hill's not too shabby, and as I always like to say, two Sarahs are better than one (this, by the way, is a global truism - the teacher-in-residence was a Sarah as well, and she made me smile all the time!).  

Namaste!
-Sarah B.

The Other Sarah

Like Sarah Wolf, I saw yoga teacher training as an unexpected gift from the universe, or as she so perfectly captured it, a "care package" at a time when I was seriously in need of care. Also like Sarah W., I was unsure what to do with the training once our 10 weeks ended. I followed through and completed the rest of the steps to get my RYT, but I had come to peace with the decision that I was more of a student than a teacher. Until I heard from Sarah. Her concept of Dedication Yoga felt like home. I believe it offers as much, if not more, opportunity for us to learn as for us to teach.

I'm excited to share that I'm bringing Sarah Wolf's class to Costa Rica, where I will study it, experiment with teaching it to others, and hopefully gain some insight to share with her and the rest of you upon my return.

Our teacher training experience was a unique and surprising experience. I can't wait to go on this next adventure. I look forward to the day we all get to lunge, twist, bend, and balance on Prospect Hill.

Until then,
Namaste!

- Sarah B.

Hi, My Name is Sarah!

This is an experiment.

Hi, my name is Sarah and I'm from Ohio.  Now I live in Somerville, Massachusetts, but I still walk around town wearing my Cleveland Indians hat, even after a decade here and two Boston Red Sox World Series victories.  I love what I love -- it's as simple as that.  And besides baseball, there are two things I love tremendously in life:  writing and yoga.  I've been writing stories and poems since I was able to hold a pencil and its my love of the art that brought me to Emerson College to earn an MFA in Creative Writing, a degree I completed in 2005.  Moving to Boston opened my life up to a world of new opportunities, including a wonderful community of artists, musicians, and free-thinkers as well as the beautiful practice of yoga.  I fell hard and fast for this athletic yet meditative form of total mind/body exercise and have prioritized my time on my mat for the last five or six years.

Life is a wild and crazy adventure sometimes and I have no idea why it took the idea so long to form in my brain, but early in 2012, I started to daydream about an experience that would combine yoga and writing.  This idea grew out of a series of conversations I had with a dear friend who was combining his own meditation practice with journaling.  I thought to myself, why can't there be a yoga class that did the same thing?  I wasn't a yoga teacher, though, so I let the idea pass pleasantly through my mind as "maybe someday."

And then, with little warning, the opportunity for me to train to be a yoga teacher fell out of the sky -- a little care package from the Universe, if you will.  The teacher training was an unexplainable, wonderful, irreplaceable, unexpected adventure.  But once the training was complete, I was uncertain how I wanted to utilize what I'd learned.  And then my "maybe someday" floated through my brain once more and I knew this was something I had to try.  I shared the idea with friends and fellow yogis, really anyone who would listen, and after receiving so much warm feedback, I decided to get this project off the ground.  My wonderful friend and fellow RYT* Sarah Bayle is working with me now to develop the pilot program for what I am calling Dedication Yoga.  Between the two Sarahs, we've got lots of ideas and are incredibly excited to see this get started.

We will update you as we go...

Sarah Wolf

*RYT = Registered Yoga Teacher