War on "The Science of Yoga"

William J. Broad, author of the book "The Science of Yoga", recently wrote a follow-up to the book, citing new evidence of how yoga can potentially hurt people including national statistics from hospitals, personal letters he received those who have injured themselves badly from yoga, and example of serious strokes and death resulted of several individuals during of after taking a yoga class. The comments section attacked him on obfuscation and exaggeration and other things. There were a couple of follow-up articles discussing people's strong responses to Broad's claim about yoga's potential to cause serious injuries, and heated discussions followed those articles too.

It seems like yoga has become a religion for some people, with no room for suggestions that it could potentially cause harm to some people when done incorrectly and when hard postures are performed by bodies with certain pre-existing medical conditions. The defenders of yoga say that, "Well then, it's the carelessness of these people and the medical conditions that caused harm to them, NOT YOGA!" Um, could you have some compassion for beginners and people who are naturally less body-aware, dear yoga-defenders? Yoga has been heavily advertised to be safe and suitable for stiff people, obese people, those who are totally unfit, pregnant women, toddlers, seniors and cancer patients. So for people who don't have full awareness/understanding of their body parts, when they do a headstand and can't tell if it's their neck bearing all the weight or if their back muscles and arms participate in the posture, and then they seriously hurt themselves, are you going to tell them how dare they muck up yoga's low injury rate statistics?

Yoga is really not that mythical. Basically, it includes exercising, stretches, deep breathing, and self awareness (including body and thought patterns). The first 3 components de-stress and rejuvenates us. By being more self-aware, we are less like auto-pilots and can make more healthy conscious choices about our lives, despite all the societal conditioning in the world. Problem is that the image of yoga is such an idealized system that we again shut off part of our thinking brain and say, "Yoga is perfect, why criticize it at all? Just follow the system and we're all set to live our lives correctly." Well, since  humans are not perfect beings, we are bound to muck up any system that seems "perfect", by not engaging the proper muscles, over-squeezing the bandhas, dumping into our most flexible joints, stand on our heads without realizing we have ultra-high blood pressure/glaucoma etc. On the spiritual side I also found it difficult to be able to tell teachers who were preaching wise messages vs. those who were preaching bullsh*t for the longest time.

But it's the mysticism that keeps us so fervent about yoga, maybe. The fierce criticizers are worried the discussion will turn people away from yoga. For me, I enjoy "dangerous" sports like snowboarding and rock climbing, so it's not a problem for me to be aware of the potential dangers of yoga. I learned it the hard way that I personally can't take most anusara classes because the over-emphasis of hip opening and "heart opening" instructions are horrible for my body. It's possible for me to take it easy, but I have a tendency to try to do every pose to the fullest, and my hips feel totally unstable afterwards. It wasn't until I understood the anatomy and goals of yoga asanas a few years later that I understood that I cannot just take any yoga classes and follow all teachers' instructions blindly. Luckily I haven't had any serious injuries, but for me it's easy to see how injuries could potentially happen with misunderstanding of instructions and not knowing one's own limits in the body.

The effects of yoga

For the past month I was working on a paper and final revisions of my thesis, and my yoga studio membership had expired, so I hadn't been going to yoga classes much at all. Even after I completed everything and felt a huge mental and physiological relieve that I was done school, for the past couple days, I hadn't slept well or felt well within the body. My ashtangi friends invited me to their house for mysore practice on Christmas day, which was lovely, since I haven't done the primary series for ages (lacking discipline to practice it on my own). It was also wonderful to be able to spend time discussing yoga with them and enjoy delicious food prepared by my friends (I am so spoiled). The next day I felt sore everywhere and my hamstrings felt overstretched, and I still had trouble sleeping at night.

It worked out that the studio was selling some relatively cheap single class passes for December so I purchased some and started going back to the studio again. I ended up taking a pilates class, a hot yoga class, and a vinyasa flow class. Last evening I noticed the therapeutic magic of continuous practice of yoga. The past couple of weeks I had been experiencing uneasiness within. The inner body was unhappy and anxious for no reason. The night before, I woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I attempted a short CD guided sitting meditation. The center of the chest under the rib cage felt like it was going numb and about to die off. I  was so anxious I wanted to stand up and run away, but the CD said to sit and feel the body, observe any thoughts and sensations that happen, so I had to force myself to sit for 30 minutes while different parts of the body went numb and then turned into pins and needle sensations. It was miserable. But after last night's practice, even though certain muscles are very sore, I felt like the crazy energy and sensations inside the body were gone. So many people think of yoga as a work out or stretching, but I really think it has a huge soothing effect on the subtle body.

I did another practice hot yoga practice today because it was taught by a teacher who always make me smile from the bottom of my heart whenever I see him. It was another great practice (sometimes I don't know if it's the yoga teacher or the yoga; it's probably an additive effect). I thought the calm and pleasant feeling would last me through the night, until I called my mom to say happy new year, and the conversation ended badly, even though neither of us wanted this to happen. I think I'm beginning to understand why some regions of the world (Africa and Middle East come to mind) are permanently in conflict, even though everybody involved really wants peace.

Anyways, after I hung up the phone, a whole bunch of negative memories, associations, stories came up and fueled my anger + discontentment. Then that washed over and went away. I checked in to the inner body: it's still maintaining that post-yoga calm. This in turn prevents me from hanging on to the drama and  going to bed angry. I think some of the indescribable discomforts in the body are associated with certain emotions or memories. Feeling that discomfort triggers negative emotions, and anxiety ensues when the discomfort refuses to go away. When the nadis are clear, good and bad feelings come and go freely, without the body holding onto the bad emotions.

Lesson learned: a regular practice of yoga works for the subtle body like fiber does for the bowels - it keeps the channels clear and so I don't become a chronic emotional mess. Temporary emotional episodes are probably unavoidable in life and as long as they pass through, I am okay dealing with them.

The nature of Ashtanga yoga

Nobel recently blogged about how his friend doesn't get why Nobel's goal in practicing yoga doesn't seem to be to master all 6 levels of Ashtanga. Megan recently blogged about waiting to hear about results from biopsies and medical test with the possibility of having cancer (sending her well-wishing thoughts). In my previous post, I wrote about how I am coming to the realization of peculiarities in my old habitual behaviors, and one of the commenters, Alison, suggested that perhaps I should look into restorative and yin yoga, since Ashtanga seems to be stirring up quite strong emotions and reactions in me.

If she had suggested this to me a year ago, I might have seriously considered her advice and switch to a calmer, more reflective yin practice. For those who have not tried practicing Ashtanga regularly, on the surface, this style of yoga appears to be a fast-paced, dynamic, heat-generating work out. Indeed, in the beginning I totally exhibited type A personality, coming to the led primary series because it challenged me more than any other yoga classes. I enjoyed the masochistic aspect that my back would ache and my arms would feel jelly the next day. Once I tried to practice two days in a row and the second day's class felt miserable. I had to do all my vinyasas on my knees. The teacher kept mentioning this was meant to be a 6-day practice and I thought he was nuts, that only exceptionally fit people could pull it off. The teacher did keep repeating the fact that this series is meant to be therapeutic, which made no sense to me at the time (which part of having my ass kicked is therapeutic??) Somehow I chose to trust the teacher because he sounded very sincere. I decided to give this class a year and see if my lower back would heal and stop aching at some point, or else I was going to move on to something else.

Well, 1.5 years later, the primary series no longer feels like an ass-kicking work out. It's still not a walk in the park, but it feels more like a full body opening stretching sequence than a heart pumping, muscle building exercising sequence. My heart rate does go up a bit while doing the sequence, but in terms of breathing, I feel no other yoga classes can bring me to breath so deeply for such an extended period of time. My teacher didn't lie; in terms of breath work it really does feel very therapeutic. I now practice Ashtanga for its calming, therapeutic effects more than anything else. So, even though it does build strength in the body, it's not the main reason why I practice Ashtanga.  Even though it doesn't burn as much calories as my previous exercise regime (I am fatter than I used to be), I am sticking with this routine until my mental clutter improves and I free up more time to exercise for the sake of exercising.

I have been thinking about yoga and spirituality. Why are some people totally fine with pursuing spirituality by long hours of sitting meditation, never having the desire to try yoga or even other forms of exercises? How come yogis seem to squirm like worms all the time and the only way to calm down is to contort their bodies into pretzels? Perhaps David Garrigues explains best in his blog post: "Ashtanga is for the hungry, the ones who have something gnawing inside, the ones who honestly aren't happy accepting complacent norms. Ashtanga is for those who are alive with intense feelings that there are worlds to discover, worlds that are found by reaching passionately inwards for expression that will contribute to personal and collective healing. "

I don't feel yin yoga works the same as Ashtanga, nor does "Core Power yoga" or Bikram or Iyengar or Anusara yoga. Don't get me wrong, I am not against these yoga styles and I think they have helped many people. I do feel I would benefit from sitting meditation, but it's the Ashtanga practice that calms down the "gnawing inside" so I can sit still for longer. I've heard there are people who practiced up to intermediate/advanced series, and then realized they actually only need to do the beginning standing series and the closing series in order to calm down and benefit from the practice.

I feel Ashtanga is very vast and deep. Devoting 1+ years to familiarize myself with the primary series is the best thing I could have ever done. From here, I can also choose to do just the opening and closing sequence, and focus on the meditative aspect of yoga; I can just practice the primary series; I can move onto the intermediate series and keep going until I reach my body's limits; I can always fall back to the primary when my body becomes injured, when I grow older, or when I am mentally drained/stressed out. I used to analyze every issue to death, thinking I have to understand everything / rationalize everything in order to find peace/resolution. Now I feel like peace comes from calming the breath, emptying the mind, and letting go of things we can't change. This realization is more useful than any psychoanalysis or any amounts of knowledge/information with which I try to cram into my brain.

I may have problems in life, but practicing Ashtanga helps me experience moments of calmness during the day. It helps clear my mind and put things into perspective, realizing what's important and what's minor. Do other yoga styles achieve the same? It might for some people, but I plan to write a whole post about my thoughts on the current industry of yoga.

A blog post all about my spine

It doesn't matter what style of yoga you practice; a major body part you work on is your spine. From gentle cat-cow warm ups, to downward/upward facing dog, to sun and moon salutations, to headstands and shoulder stands,  to crazy leg behind the head poses, most yoga poses move the spine in all sorts of directions, in much greater depths than most sports and activities ever require. There are apparently 5 major ways to move your spine: flexion, extension, axial rotation (twists), lateral flexsion (side bends), and axial extension (lengthening). Before I started yoga I thought I had a limber body. Now I feel like I'm finally using my spine the way its intended - built to be curved in so many ways, as long as the muscles, fascia, tendons, ligaments etc coordinate with the vertebrae.

When I started yoga I came to heal my spine. My lower back was hurting me, and when I first started Ashtanga it felt worse. I couldn't tell if I was doing the poses wrong or if my lower back was just weak. I asked the teacher and he said my poses looked okay and he didn't see anything wrong with what I was doing. Primary series was supposed to be therapeutic right? So I tried to suck in my belly button more whenever I felt discomfort in the lumbar spine, hoping the sensation would go away soon. Either that or I would have to quit yoga and switch to some other activity. Thankfully, after 6 months the lower back weirdness went away. So it was indeed a weakness and the primary series helped strengthen my spine in a major way.

Then there was my neck. Ever since I started yoga, I noticed I had a neck ache. I went to see a massage therapist which helped make it better. However after a month the achy-ness came back. I learned it was probably due to the turtle haunch position that I have been assuming in front of my computer screen for the past 10 years. I went to see a chiropractor, which tried to fix my imbalance in terms of left twist vs. right twist, but I felt it was such a money scam because he only worked on me for about 20 minutes at a time and charged me $40 per session, and asked me to go back for 8 more sessions. My yoga teachers adjusted me more than the chiropractor during a 75 minute yoga class, and I pay way less for a class. I tried to lengthen my neck whenever I notice my turtle shrug, but the discomfort persisted. Then I noticed headstands made my neck uncomfortable so I had to stop practicing that at home. I still did it in class but usually only for like 5 breaths and often with the teacher supporting my legs. I notice my neck felt worse when I tried to assume thumb drishti in trikonasana and utthita parsvokonasana, so I stopped looking up in those poses and just focused on lengthening my cervical spine.

Recently, my teacher has been coming by, putting fingers on my back and telling me to engage my lats and pull my back muscles down the spine. Hmm, I can't seem to engage my lats at all. I consciously pull them down for a few breaths, then the next time I check my shoulders are up to my ears again. Sigh. That must be the reason why my neck hurts.

I am just noticing recently that I don't use enough of my back strength in matsyasana. When I engage my back more, uttana padasana suddenly feels a lot harder (I've been arching my back and not engaging back muscles in these 2 poses all this time). So suddenly I am feeling a new sense of strength building in my spine. My headstands are feeling better in the neck, and in setu bandhasana, I am finally taking my elbows off the floor and crossing my arms over my chest. It feels pretty creepy but I can feel strength building in my neck as well. I am really hoping this period of neck strengthening will get rid of the neck discomfort once and for all.

Backbends: now that I am starting to attempt drop backs, I am feeling weirdness in my lower back return. Actually, a few posts back I complained about lumbar spine weirdness in urdhva dhanurasana. So it went away for awhile and I thought I was done with low back strengthening, but I guess I'm not done. I look at my own wheel pose in the mirror and it has such a mild arch, despite how intense it feels. And then I look at pictures of yogis grabbing their ankles in their wheel poses, and I wonder exactly what needs to stretch to get to that point. Kino's article and video suggests that we hang over upside down without touching the mat for a few breaths; I'm sorry but I don't have enough strength to hold it half way. I am either upright with a little back bend or I'm all the way down. There's no in between. Does it mean my back is just too weak?

So many people I've seen come to yoga with a haunch in the shoulder/upper back area. When I look at the pictures of long term ashtanga practitioners, they all seem to have a straight back, and when they bend either forwards or backwards, they bend right at the waist, instead of rounding at the thoracic spine. I don't know if this is the case, but has all these forward bends where the teacher has been helping me flatten my spine on my legs resulted in shifting of imbalances to the upper (neck) and lower (lumbar) part of the spine instead?

One thing's for sure: I definitely need more back strengthening and continue to engage my trapezius and lats to keep my shoulder blades down the back. The fascia and the connective tissue stuff I have no control over; they'll just have to keep restructuring on their own. I wonder if non-Ashtanga yoga styles also re-work the spine in the same way, since most yoga styles I know don't emphasize forward bends.

At ease with the present state of being

I am very content with my life right now.

I was going through my old journals/diaries and the basic theme that kept occurring over and over again are negativity and complaints. My life isn't actually dramatically better now than before. It was just that I focused my energy on dwelling on the negative aspects of people, events and state of things. My intention was to pick out the bad bits and make improvement or eliminate them completely from my life, as if it's possible to eliminate all annoyance in life.

Yoga's very simple teaching of "impermanence" - good and bad things enter and leave us throughout our lifetime, whether we like it or not - saved me from my habit of focusing on the negative and being stubbornly unhappy for a prolonged period of time with anything that annoys me. It's incredible that such a simple realization of what should be an obvious fact has changed my fundamental way of viewing life. It has made me a lot less anxious, uneasy, and angry in general. I still get mad when people take advantage of me or misunderstand me, but I get over them a lot faster now - by faster I mean within several days rather than weeks/months, This alone has significantly improved my quality of being.

Initially, I mistakenly thought that by immersing myself into yoga teachings, buddhism and meditation, I would be able to get myself together and immediately become an organized, efficient being, able to focus on my work, stop forgetting where I put my keys, be able to inspire others like my yoga teachers have inspired me, hugely improve my relationships with my friends and family, eat healthy and lose all the unwanted weights, basically change myself in the direction towards becoming a perfect human being.

I look around my room right now and it's still a mess. I am still a hopeless procrastinator (was hoping to get some schoolwork done this Easter long weekend and I've accomplished zilch so far). On the surface I still look like I don't have all my marbles together and am struggling to figure out what to do with life.

The big difference is that I am no longer constantly feeling anxious about my current state of being. When I stop obsessing about my own insecurity, I start to recognize restlessness and anxiety on other people's faces. It's like I've had spider webs pulled over my eyes my entire life and only now have they been cleared. Almost everyone around me experience anxiety and uneasiness at least several times a day!  How could I not have seen that before! That's why people crave caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes, junk food, pathologically check email on their iPhones every 5 minutes, stick earphones in their ears whenever they are not talking to someone or watching a screen of some sort, make nervous jokes if there's a silence for more than a few seconds, do crosswords/read on Kindle if they have more than 2 minutes of free time. I'm not saying these activities are good or bad; It's just that for the first time in my life, I am starting to notice the flash of unease on people's faces right before they proceed to do any of the above mentioned things. I used to think that people just get bored easily and need constant external stimulations. Now I see that people are uncomfortable with just "being", so we try to drown out that uneasiness with chemical substances and external stimulations. The thing is most of us don't realize why we do what we do.

No wonder we need yoga and meditation so badly as a society. People are initially attracted to the asanas/work out/physical stretching aspect of yoga, but our neurosis/anxiety are alleviated as a result. I thought meditation was meant to increase concentration and thus be more efficient at work/school, but I now realize it is helping me to be  more at ease with my current state of being, whether I'm zoning out, late for an appointment, being ripped off by my phone company, noticing a guy masturbating in public while staring at me (that happened yesterday, gross!), having shooting pain right after I bang my knee on a coffee table corner, etc etc.

The realization of impermanence, the body tension release from asanas, the nerve calming effects of deep breathing, and the inspiring demonstration of patience and care from yoga teachers have helped me become more peaceful. I wonder what will help other people ease their anxiety. It doesn't seem like the same formula alleviates everyone from their anxious minds. Yes, I'm saying I notice anxiety in many fellow yogis. There are some who seem to have taken on an addictive approach to yoga practice, acting all frazzled if they miss a class, or even taking 3-4 classes a day -- I'm not sure if they're trying to get sufficient work out (in which case they should probably go pick up a more cardio-intensive sport) or if they're trying to triple/quadruple their blissfulness. In any case, I should 1) continue working on my own internal calmness and 2) learn to be more at ease with other people's uneasiness.

I smashed into a tree - test-driving yoga fitness in the big mountains

I've been doing nothing but yoga for the past year or so. This weekend, I went snowboarding with friends who are way better skiiers/boarders than I am, so I really had my limits pushed. For those who are not familiar with downhill skiing and snowboarding, the appeal of such a sport is similar to the adrenaline rush obtained from car or motorcycle racing, except you need to balance your body on either one or two pieces of waxed wooden/fiberglass boards with metal edges. There are people who ask me why I love snowboarding so much. Well,

1) I love nature.

2) It's fascinating that I can go from top to the bottom of a mountain, thousands of feet high, in less than an hour, simply by strapping my feet to a piece of wooden board. It's a mind-blowing concept.

3) Even though gravity does most of the work in bringing me down the hill, different types of terrains and snow textures make it infinitely challenging to stay upright on the board. Incredible balancing act is required; strong knees and legs are needed to maintain control of the board; and for someone like me who falls a lot, having to constantly push myself back up to standing makes snowboarding a full-body work out :)

Spending a day on the snowy mountain makes me feel so blessed to be me!

Here are my thoughts regarding how much yoga has prepped me for this snowboarding season:

1) Yoga has helped strengthen my arms and core so that even though I fell about a million times a day, I could still manage push myself upright from the ground whether I had my ass on the ground (Purvottanasana anyone?) or my face on the ground (chaturanga and vinyasas in general). I definitely noticed an improvement from previous years of snowboarding, where I would have no strength left to push myself back up in the latter half of the day.

2) Ashtanga yoga asks us to back off with the intensity when we have to start mouth breathing. The purpose of breathing in and out strictly through the nose is to generate prana. The bandhas serve to "lock" the prana and minimize their escape from the body. It makes me feel revitalized rather than exhausted after each yoga practice.

Yoga serves to strengthen and heal the body, so it does provide us with a base fitness good for health and longevity. However, out on the big mountains, where it's me + waxed board versus mother nature, ashtanga practice alone doesn't quite provide enough cardiovascular endurance for me to keep up with my friends. When I got stuck in deep powder, I was mouth-breathing pretty heavily when trying to dig myself out, and my heart was pounding way harder than it has for a long time (imagine you're a few feet deep in the snow, trying to push yourself back up to standing, except no matter where you push down, your arms go right through a foot of snow).

Conclusion: Yoga is great for overall mental and body health, but if I want to keep up with my ultra-fit friends and continue my recreation of going down tall snowy mountains using a wooden plank as a transportation device, I will probably have to step up my exercise/fitness scheme this summer.

3) I usually stay on wide groomed runs and avoid trees for fear of running into them. However my skilled friends love to work on their maneuvering skills within trees. To push my limits I decided to join them, and lo' and behold, I smashed into a tree on the last day (luckily not the first day). Of all the ways you can smash into trees (head-first, face-first, body-first, shoulder-first, hip-first,  jamming my arm into the tree, etc), all of which could result into a broken body part or an ugly surface bruise, my collision was quite optimal - my right outer thigh was charlie-horsed by the tree. Given how meaty and fatty my thighs are, it really was the safest way to collide with a tree (not that I did this on purpose).

If I weren't so into yoga then it would have just been a painful experience. But now that I'm obsessed with internal sensations of the body and an anatomy geek, I found it to be a fascinating learning experience.  My friend asked me if I was okay. Unwilling to admit weakness, I claimed I was fine, and somehow managed to make it all the way down the mountain by putting most weight on my left leg (luckily the dominant/steering leg). There was a dull pain when I first collided with the tree, and then I found my body took over some of the controls. I tried to figure out what movements would be okay and what would aggravate my right thigh, and turned out that besides putting weight on it, twisting my body to the left would make it painful. Luckily going down the mountain goofy (left leg back, right side of body pointing downhill) does not require me to twist my body to the left at any point. Nevertheless, I could feel my muscle fibers (especially in the left leg) automatically acting differently trying to avoid full engagement of the right quadriceps. When I finally took off my snowboard at the end, I noticed I couldn't even walk properly without a limp (straightening the leg completely or bending it more than 90 degrees would aggravate pain). Don't worry, I was still capable of limping my way to the car, carrying all my snowboard equipments, and my friends barely noticed it.

Ashtanga will not be possible for a couple of days but hopefully I should be back in (yoga) business by the end of this week. I'm thankful for my friends for encouraging me to push my limits; otherwise I'd probably still be stuck on beginner green/blue runs never attempting anything more difficult. I'm thankful I have a healthy body to try out incredible/crazy activities. I used to wonder why I push myself so hard. Now when I get sick or injured, I am reminded to live to my body and mind's full potential, because I can. If I were born a really sick person, I'd live my life to the fullest of the sick body's capability, so why hold back and be safe when the healthy body is capable of so much more?  There will no doubt be a point in life when I will not be able to attempt these activities any more, but that time is definitely not now.

Brain cleansing by sound vibrations

So the past few days I was pretty distressed because the Japan nuclear plant situation kept getting worse and worse, despite the workers' best efforts.  The fact that the news reporting were so confusing that the company was hiding some details and wasn't telling the public the whole truth.  In addition, my family seemed to worry more about their own well-being than those who are physically in Japan. On top of that, people's irrationalities in general also got on my nerves. I mentioned I needed a meditation retreat, to get rid of my distressed thinking.

Well, right this moment I cannot get away on a trip, so I've been playing my Sanskrit chant CDs in my car and at my computer at school, which has helped a little bit but doesn't seem to be enough.  Thankfully, the universe heard my distress call and helped me out today. I was feeling crappy this afternoon and didn't really want to go to yoga after school (Note: this could have been the result of too much drinking for St. Patrick's Day the previous night rather than what I wrote in the above paragraph, but fact is, I was feeling crappy). Luckily, I still dragged my ass to yoga class anyways and it was the best thing I could have done for myself.  This particular yoga teacher decided to play the crystal singing bowl during savasana, and oh man, it felt like I was given a luxury brain massage + cleanse.  The sound went in from one year, and out the other ear, kind of circulated (rather loudly) in and out of my head a few times, and really cleared up all my distress and jumbled thoughts that have been weighing me down. I don't know how to describe the exact sensation, but the effect was equivalent to shoving a towel from one ear through the head and out the other ear, and giving it a good tug back and forth as if shining my brain like it were a leather shoe. Or, converting the inside of my head into a vigorous laundry machine using Tibetan singing bowl vibrations.  Yes, it felt as dramatic is I'm trying to make it sound. Whatever the mechanism, it worked wonders. If I tilt my head and hop on one leg right now, all the distressful thoughts and unnecessary worries would probably fall out of my ear in broken pieces, along with the broken up ear wax bits :P

So while I don't feel completely at peace yet (ears still feel a little tender) I certainly feel like I've experienced an awesome mind-cleanse. My distress and anger and yucky feelings seem to have gone out the window. I need to kidnap this teacher and make him play the singing bowl whenever my thoughts spiral out of control, or it might be easier (and more legal) to just learn more about Tibetan singing bowls, possibly learn to play one myself (no idea how much it costs and how difficult it is to operate.. does it work on the person who's playing the instrument?)

Thank you Universe for answering my call and making me feel better. I hope you will answer our prayers and help out the Japanese people too. Any signs of kindness would be helpful and appreciated.

Answer to the query in my "About Me" section may have been found

When I started this blog, I wrote the "About me" section half-jokingly. As a result, my yoga blog really became about answering this question: how exactly did yoga manage to transform a cynical me into a more hopeful, grateful, more compassionate person?

Dr. Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist who also teaches yoga at Stanford, may have just answered my question in her presentation. It's presented in the standard way that scientists are trained to present data: straightforward, no bells and whistles, no poetic metaphors, just straight up facts explaining how self-compassion works. I'm still working on doing my presentation Dr. McGonigal's way so I can pass my oral defense this year (I tend to jump all over the place and am not always clear, if you haven't noticed yet :) ), but I wish I had SereneFlavor as a teacher so I can communicate half as beautifully as she does. I'll just have to keep reading everything she writes I guess.

Let me summarize for those who don't want to watch the full video (at the bottom of the post):

There are two ways to think about one's own suffering:

1. Be self-critical about it. I suck. I'm not good enough, careful enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, kind enough, smart enough, skilled enough, trying hard enough and that's why this terrible thing is happening to me.

2. Offer compassion to oneself as a good friend would do in the situation. Reflect on the unpleasant event and think self-soothing thoughts, such as "you poor thing, you have tried your best and too bad it didn't work out. It's okay, next time you'll do better. It's not meant to be." etc.

The first way is quite typical of how we think when we encounter something negative, such as failing a job interview, getting into a car accident, breaking grandma's favorite dish at a Xmas party, etc. What happens is that brain regions associated with self-inhibition, self-control, punishment, self-punishment are activated when we think this way. (ie. Samskara in scientific babble).

The second way of thinking (people rarely think this way when they've done something wrong), activates brain regions associated with passion, and understanding what's happening in the body.  Practicing thinking this way reinforces this type of thinking pattern and automatically makes one more compassion towards other people as well.

Now, I haven't been practicing thinking the second way at all when something crappy happens to me. However, yoga teachers often ask us to thank ourselves for coming to class and for being kind to ourselves. I thought this instruction was strange when I first heard it, but I did what the teacher asked anyways. Yoga teachers also stress the importance of paying attention to any message the body's sending us, to do all poses in a way that feels good and causes no pain.  In reality, it's not the poses themselves that make use feel connected with one another (although practicing with others in a shala cultivates a sense of connection); when we practice listening to our own body, we're really exercising the brain regions associated with compassion, understanding, and loving kindness! Even when we practice compassion on ourselves, our ability to be compassionate to other people improves. Who knew!

Conversely, those who are used to being self-critical are also more judgmental of other people without realizing it. Hmm, so me and my whole family are guilty of this. When we think we only hurt ourselves by being overly self-critical, in fact we are training our brain to be less understanding and less compassionate towards other people as well.  So, when my mother or my cousin or my aunt keeps telling me what I should do or how I should be, it's really because they're judgmental of themselves. Since I am also self-critical (already beating myself up before they tell me what I should do), I am less likely to be willing to receive well-meaning feedback and constructive criticisms from others. So the trick to stop having strong hostile reactions towards my family's tendency to judge everybody involves practicing more self-compassion and loving kindness towards myself. I can do that! Time to ramp up Project Self-pampering!

I know most of you yogis out there know about yoga and compassion already and don't need hard scientific proofs to believe in it, but I'm a skeptic and a curious cat. I like scientific explanations of how stuff works, including yoga magic :)


Here's Dr. McGonigal's talk on self-compassion:

Are you either flexible or not flexible? Is this a binary thing?

A friend of mine complained that she couldn't believe after 5 months of taking yoga classes her flexibility hasn't improved at all.

Hmm. I guess people have all sorts of expectations about yoga. Some won't try yoga at all because they aren't flexible. I commend my friend for signing up for yoga to do something about her stiffness, but I wasn't sure how to advise her. Someone from my yoga class told me she's been doing yoga for years and hadn't experienced much improvement in flexibility or in terms of asanas until she started taking this Ashtanga class, where adjustments are more "aggressive" compared to other yoga styles. It's also easier to notice baby step improvements in flexibility given the same sequence is done every class. However, she told me that if she attends class less than 3 times a week (she normally goes 5x/week), she would feel her fascia/muscles tighten right back up.

Back to my friend. She told me she's been going to class twice a week, normally a power class followed by a yin class. No one holds her down for any of the postures in these classes (whereas I'm used to my Ashtanga teacher pinning me down for at least one forward fold per class. Masochistic much?). In an yin class I took with her I could see her wiggling around in poses which are understandably uncomfortable, but the wiggling probably decreased the effectiveness of the stretches.

I don't know if it'll discourage her if I tell her what my classmate told me. Tom Myers mentioned there are two types of fascia - a flexible kind ("temple dancer fascia") and a stiff kind ("viking fascia"). That's discouraging for the stiff people. On the other hand, I have also heard about advanced yogis who started out not being able to touch their toes.

This makes me think that flexibility is a "skill" that can be improved with dedicated practice/training. In addition to repeated routine practice, one must hold a stretch to its edge and hold it for much longer than what most people are comfortable with, co-ordinating with long deep breaths and at the same time consciously willing the muscles to relax. It takes some discipline to do it on one's own. In my case, I have enough discipline to show up to class but no discipline in working hard on my own so I love it that my teacher willingly does half the work  :P

Yoga, especially Ashtanga, provides a systematic approach to improving flexibility, both in terms of sequencing of asanas as well as teacher's adjustment / pressure applying techniques. It's what attracted me to this practice in the first place (I like anything with a systematic methodology that's proven to work). However, since my friend doesn't live anywhere near an Ashtanga shala (or my studio), it's tougher for her to try out the system. Also I don't get the vibe that she's head over heels in love with yoga and wants to spend all her free time attending more yoga classes. Instead of being all overly enthusiastic and evangelical about the effectiveness of Ashtanga yoga, I should probably just back off but remain receptive in answering any questions she has about improving flexibility or about yoga in general.

Anyone reading this care to share your experience with stretching / working on your flexibility? I am very interested in hearing about your insights on this topic.

Thailand - land of smiles and unforgettable kind souls

Happy New Year everyone!

I recently went on an Island hopping tour in Thailand, with the intention to get away from family, who were too eager to show their hospitality to the point of overwhelming me. I just wanted to lie around doing nothing on gorgeous Thai beaches for a week.  Turned out the itinerary was so packed, I visited something like 12 beaches in 7 days. Instead of lying around, I ended up snorkeling, swimming, fishing, hiking, boating, and was exhausted every day.  However, my normally over-critical/analytical mind got a nice break. My thought process, often stuck in a habitual way of thinking, also got refreshed with new perspectives, so I call this trip a success.

A few examples of gorgeous beaches I visited

The beaches were as pristine and beautiful as expected. However, knowing that Thailand is an ultra-popular tourist destination, I was somewhat expecting an over-commercialize trip with local vendors trying to sell me stuff everywhere I go and scam me every chance they get. By the end of the trip I felt like I've never been pampered so well in my life and seriously did not want to go home.

The highlight of my trip was a 2-day camping trip on a remote island, with a pristine beach but a campsite full of mosquitoes, monitor lizards, and bathrooms with no hot water.

A monitor lizard. These guys are HUGE and like to hang out at the entrance of lady's bathroom  at night.

Despite all this, the people who ran the campsite absolutely won my heart. They operated the long-tail boat, carried our luggages, took us fishing and snorkeling, cooked us delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and at night time, they laid out these nice straw mats for us to sit and relax on the beach. Then one of the whipped out a guitar, and started playing Thai folk music. One of the boatmen started to sing, and then all the others joined him. It sounded like heaven. The guys were shy at first, but after a few drinks (cheap Thai Whiskey), they were singing their hearts out like choir boys putting on their best performance and genuinely showing their joy on their beautiful faces. The only other times I got to see this kind of sincerity were maybe at elementary school performances.  As the night went on they started offering us what they were drinking and smoking. I felt like I was at their home and they were doing everything they could to make us feel more at home.  It was a magical experience I will never forget.

I was on this boat for quite a few days. Loved every minute of it.

The guys who ran our boat during the day. Later on more guys came out and formed a nice choir

It's really hard to organize all the intense thoughts and feelings I have about this trip. Below are a few points I wanted to mention:

1. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to spend a few days with these people, who were gentle, polite, smart, observant, hardworking, highly skilled at their jobs, and carried such gorgeous smiles. They went out of their ways to pamper and entertain us every day. Even though they did not speak much English, and I spoke zero Thai, I felt like they could often read my mind (really good hospitality skills maybe?), and they really enjoyed what they do.

2. Drinking and smoking: I know that these habits are bad for the body and normally avoid them, especially smoking. However, at this particular occasion, I felt that since I didn't speak their language or know their songs, sharing a drink with them was the best way to connect with the locals and I have a feeling they really appreciated it.  To be honest, they live a much healthier lifestyle compared to us anyways: getting up at 6-7am every morning, doing labor work, swimming every day, developing superb balancing skills running up and down the simple long-tail boat, eating freshly caught fish all the time, and living a low-stress life.  Actually, when I declined the cigarette they offered me (I was afraid I'd cough and tear up and make a fool of myself), they paused, looked at each other, withdrew their offer, and said to me, "Good to not smoke. Smoking bad for you!"  I thought that was really cute :)

3. Did I do any yoga during this trip? No. It just didn't feel right do bust out some yoga moves on this remote island (although many islands did offer yoga classes for the same price as back home, which is a total rip-off, compared to the prices of everything else there). However I felt on this trip I received every benefit that yoga has to offer. I got 2 Thai massages within 9 days. The first one fixed my tweaked neck which had been bothering me for days since before the trip. The second one fixed my achy hip flexors. Thai massage is also known as "Lazyman's yoga" so I got my asana and stretches in for the week. For exercise, I swam and snorkeled 7 days in a row. The last time I went for a swim was November 2009, so this was quite a feat for me. In a way snorkeling is a great pranayama exercise. I found when I didn't maintain rhythmic breathing, I got tired very easily, not to mention salt water splashed down my throat. Only when I finally got a breathing rhythm established, could I really feel at peace and fully enjoy the beautiful view of underwater sceneries. One thing I love about yoga is the connection I make with yoga teachers and fellow yogis. Yoga teachers go out of their way to pamper students, while the yoga community consists of many genuine people striving to support and connect with each other (shout out to the cyber yoga community!). It's pretty bizarre but awesome at the same time to experience the same level of connection and kindness from a bunch of young boys who fish and drive boats for a living. I was also fortunate to be traveling with a group of lovely travelmates from all over the world as well as a superb Thai tour leader who also took great care of us and got us from place to place smoothly.

The year 2010 was a time of my intense obsession with yoga. I am thankful since it was what I needed badly at the time. This trip cured my OCD and showed me that while yoga is a wonderful thing, there are alternative things in life that could offer me much joy too :) I am so lucky to get the chance to travel to remote places in order to gain new perspectives and am grateful to all the beautiful souls who showed me examples of goodness of mankind. There is hope for this world yet :)