yoga humor, yogini style, yoga personality, yoga tips - Y is for Yogini

5 ways yoga is like s&m { oooh! ouch! }

photo credit: time.com

I've got my pleather yoga strap in hand and you better believe I'm going there. While the more apropos term is "BDSM," I feel like S&M still holds a certain delicious dirtiness. It's best you agree, considering I'm the one holding the whip. { too much too soon? heh. didn't think so. you love it, dirty bird! }

Let's get two things out of the way before we begin: 1) Yoga can be like S&M if you are a type-a pusher or tango with these tendencies, so don't get all feisty with me if you have a sweet, honest practice that reads more Disney than The Brothers Grimm. 2) Our safe word is "ahimsa."

1. Bondage - Yoga straps, bound baddha konasana, and strangling sports bras (why are they ALL like this?!). And teachers always seem suspiciously giddy to "help" you bind yourself up or get you a strap. Hmmm...
2. Sadism - We've all had a teacher like this. You know who you are and you are way too jolly when you gleefully exclaim, "We're doing to do a LOT of core work today!" Your cheery little face masks a devious, blackened, sadistic heart.
3. (Erotic) Asphyxiation - Let's come clean. We do this to ourselves. When things get particularly gritty in class or the nemesis pose rears its challenging head, we hold our breath. And hold. And forget we're holding. And hold some more.
4. Masochism - Whether it's mental (self-talk such as, "No Child's Pose for you, pansy-ass sassafrass!") or physical (toes dig into your mat, teeth gritted, sweat beads upon your brow, pose held for dear life), we do it again and again. Because we are pushers and punishers. We see no edge, no borders, no boundaries.
5. Deviants - The more vanilla and mainstream yoga goes, the more underground the yogasphere goes. We keep our words and our practice real. We are deviant because we deviate. By choice. We follow our own rules. I don't know about you, but that gets me hot and bothered.

To my fellow pushers, I send you blissful ease and a dose of straightforward sensualism. To my fellow yogic deviants, crack the whip!

With tough love from atop my custom-studded Manduka Black,

down with the yogalomaniac {yanking the EGO out of YOGA}

You heard me. Fie on the megalomaniacs, those yoga "teachers" self-dousing and drowning in ego, with delusions of grandeur and omnipotence; the ones I am officially coining yogalomaniacs.

I've read a few disturbing articles as of late, namely:

• Bow Down to the Yoga Teacher - Newsweek
• The Overheated, Oversexed Cult of Bikram Choudhury - Details 

I have scads of experience with ego. As a practitioner and eternal student, I am challenged by my own each and every day, on and off the mat. It is quiet, personal; there is determination present. However, this movement of certain teachers toward achieving and believing their own "celebrity" status is repugnant.

The whole of this makes me want to bust a few yogic caps in the collective asana. So here I am, stocked up to the sirsa with ammo, guns blazing.

Yanking the Ego out of Yoga:

1. Guru means teacher. It does not mean holier than thou, more vast than the universe, and deeper than the black hole. To think being a teacher makes you untouchable and godlike really just confirms that you're an ass...hole.


2. If you were truly tapped in and pranically plentiful, there would be no need for pomp, circumstance, and a dramatic class entrance. You'd understand that you are the container to hold your students, to uplift + elevate, and your brilliant energy would naturally be everywhere.


3. If you're telling me, directly or indirectly, that the most important thing about yoga is that it induces weight loss, perhaps we should work together on increasing your brain mass. And filling your shallow persona pool.


4. Some of you have transparent dreams of being superawesomelyfamous actors and actresses. That's fine, but don't make teaching yoga your route thereto. That's blasphemy of the worst kind — like pissing in the mouths of those dying of thirst.


5. I didn't come to class to hear you belt out an aria which sounds more Chicago than chant. Take off your headset, ditch the bling, shut your mouth, open your ears and heart, and let's do this. Elvis has left the building yoga studio.


6. To the spiritually bereft masquerading as peeps bringing love and spirit power to the yoga people, you will likely be called on your shit. Loudly, passionately, and intelligently. I am honored to know some seriously badass yogis and yoginis who possess wonderfully strong voices. Some people cannot and will not be fooled.


7. F*cking your students is like f*cking yourself. And nobody wants that. Stop being a f*cker.

Let us bring an end to the strokefest by not providing ego lubrication.

Mad love to all the teachers doin' the damn thing with grace, humility, surrender, and the spirit of offering.

yoga mind, beginner's mind

photo credit: schwinnbike.com

"You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you." - Barbara Sher

On Sunday in YTT, we delved into How to Teach Beginners. A large part of this was to experience our asana practice with a Beginner's Mind. Kia (my mentor) said, in her simple-yet-profoundly-beautiful way, "Think of someone you love who has never practiced yoga. Now practice today as though you were inhabiting their body."

As I've divulged before, I'm a pusher, a perfectionist, a Type-A. This concept of masquerading as a beginner created chaos in my brain. How can I practice like I don't know what I know? Will my ego step aside for two hours while I explore this? Can I trust that I'll take something away from this experience without feeling gypped? Will I think less of myself for being gentle, green, and beginner-esque?

The Universe divinely intervened on my behalf. Sometimes it knows that I need a firm hand to help me soften. Dichotomic, but true. I woke up yesterday before class with the most pain in my neck I've ever felt. My fault, I'm sure. I think I overextended my neck in Pincha. Either way, this neck pain FORCED me to practice like a beginner. It was there to remind me that I couldn't push myself too far. My neck literally wouldn't go back or too far to either side. No delicious full Bhujangasana, no looking at the ceiling in Triko, no uber-bendy Uttanasana. MF, I was really going to have to do this noob-style!

Here's what I took away from my day as a Beginner:

1. Beginning bodies (and all bodies for that matter) have limits that should be respected.
2. Certain poses advanced practitioners view as simple can be an incredible amount of work when drilled down and explored the way a Beginner would. Setu Bandha Sarvangasana (Bridge)!
3. Preparing a class for Beginners and teaching them is much harder than upper level classes/students. It takes an incredibly sophisticated teacher to facilitate and cultivate an excellent introduction to yoga.
4. When you settle in to practicing like a Beginner, the mental chatter actually dissipates, shifting to curiosity, empathy, and exploration.
5. Props (and their intelligent use) are crucial to making poses accessible for Beginning bodies.
6. Yoga teachers have a great, great responsibility when teaching Beginners. You can either introduce someone to the beauty of yoga with a moving experience or chase them off forever with a bad one.

I'm not glad my neck hurts (as I type, I'm currently sporting a Bengay heat patch), but I am thankful that I was able to practice in a new way, to see yoga through different eyes, feel it within another body, and take the journey in a contrasting mind-set.

Do you ever practice like a Beginner? What kind of perspective has it given you?

{ kundalini } the cure for all that binds you

artwork credit: Dariusz Palarczyck 

I'm a flow girl. Yoga, rhymes, water, mental linking: I'm moved by movement. Something groundbreaking has stirred me recently - the glorious experience of Kundalini Yoga. It has also been a mirror.

I've dabbled a teensy bit in the past, done a few Gurmukh and Gurutej DVDs, but not on a connected, in-person level until early last week. I went to a Kundalini class taught by my amazing mentor.

What an awakening! Free, flowing, warm bodies waving about with passion and grace, less any chaos or franticness. I've been to every class since that first one and absolutely don't want to miss a single one in the future.

On Monday "we" danced about on our mats. Well, I watched 30+ people fully in the zone and enjoying the bodies we reside in. They had a kick-asana time. I danced/postured and thought, "F*ck I'm uncomfortable."

Now if these people are warm water, I'm embarrassed to say that I am ice. I felt stiff and reticent around them. And I have a background in dance! Doesn't mean a thing if you can't let loose, relax, and not worry about being so perfectly contained, good, appropriate.

I've got a LOT of work to do. Untangling, loosening, freeing. I hold my feelings close, protect myself at great length, and generally keep everyone at leg's distance (not a typo, I do mean leg, not arm!).

That said, I know myself extremely well. I know that I gravitate toward specific things for a reason - because there's more work to do and more to learn.

Cripes, this isn't going to be easy, but I know a sign when I see one. And this one says "Kundalini Now!"

{ ain't too proud } for yoga props

  photo credits: yogajournal.com, yogaaccessories.com

I've been practicing this awesomeness called yoga for a very long time. I like to think I have a solid idea of what I'm doing. I need to come clean, though, and say that sometimes my ego really gets in my way.

I'm learning to say, "Ego! Take thyself away, never to appear again!" But like an undesirable habit, there it is again. This is a dysfunctional relationship.

Every single time I've practiced shoulder stand (Salamba Sarvangasana) in the past, I've done it without blankets (no "Salamba"). And every time I've been discouraged. My legs weren't straight enough, my back bowed too much, it felt ... uncomfortable.

I could see with my own eyes that even Rodney Yee, Rainbeau Mars, and other experts used blankets for support. For whatever reason ( ... ego ... ), I never did.

My shoulder stand life changed a few weekends ago in Teacher Training. For the first time, I used two blankets underneath my much-abused shoulders. EPIPHANY IN MIND AND BODY! My shoulder stand was so on-point, so effortless, and felt so good that I stayed in it for 5+ minutes.

Wow.

Talk about a humbling moment. After the practice, I thought about (and have continued to explore) how I allow my ego to create roadblocks in yoga and in life.

I am proud to say, I'm now the owner of two fluffy, thick yoga blankets (thank you YogaAccessories.com!). My new friends will be making an appearance in shoulder stand and anywhere else they are needed.

"If I need it in the morning or the middle of the night ... I ain't too proud to beg" for props!
(I love the TLC version best, but OG credit goes to The Temptations!)