No tiny yoga shorts in my class today :( :( :(

I looked around in my classroom today and noticed that not a single person wore short shorts! None of the women wore anything shorter than crop pants. The guys either wore super long shorts that went all the way below the knees (basketball shorts I think), or bicycle shorts, or shorts that covered at least half the the thighs. I was kind of disappointed :( I swear I've seen women in sports bras at least and somewhat short shorts (butt cheeks still covered) in yoga classes before, but I guess today in particular was a G-rated, family-friendly class. Sad.

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Onwards! A bit about dristi. I try hard to stare at my own nose, but truth is, I'm fascinated by everyone's body types, athletic backgrounds, flexibility levels, teacher's personalized adjustments for each individual, asana progresses, so on and so on. What can I say, I am super curious! I generally keep my head facing in the direction of the drishti but my eyes are constantly checking these things out. I just learned today that for Mari C, the head faces straight behind, but the drishi should still be on the nose. LOL, no wonder I've been feeling super awkward having to look eye-to-eye at all the people behind me this entire time I've been practicing this series! The thing is, people in this class have worse drishti than I do. Even for people who are stiff as a board, shouldn't they at least be looking towards the side wall, rather than staring straight at me? How the heck do you do a twist when you're still facing forward?

Hmm, never mind, I just tried it; it's still possible to do a twist while looking ahead, but good luck getting deeper into the pose (especially without a bind)!

Oh, and for Karnapidasana + Pindasana, the drishi is what, navel? So why do I find myself staring at the anti-camel toe patch on my pants instead? It's better than the alternative of what I'd be staring at if the patch weren't there I guess.

I realize drishi for forward folds is the big toe, but right now I'm just looking down at my large thighs because I'm having neck strain issues. I can't figure out if I'm straining my neck from yoga or if it's from bad postures working long hours in front of the computer. It's probably a mixture of both. Anyways, forehead kissing my knees right now until my neck improves, which could take awhile.

Drishi's definitely necessary in a classroom setting. Otherwise I'd be admiring people's fashion instead. Oh wait, I do that anyways. I guess I've always been admiring people's cute tanks tops and new hair styles. Today was the first time I paid attention to people's shorts, which seemed to be not as short I'd expected :D

Yah I know, my dharana, pranayama and pratyahara kind of suffer with this bad habit, but I think if I take yoga too seriously there's the danger of getting tired of it some day. Never know if that day will come, but I don't want it to come too soon. Still fascinated with many aspects of Ashtanga right now.

Addicted to prana

I took a couple power yoga classes with alternative teachers recently, due to social reasons. Yes, yoga is like a social activity for me now. Some people go clubbing or go for coffee with friends; I go to various studios for yoga classes with friends whom I haven't seen for awhile. I also try to attend classes of people who have newly gotten their teacher training certifications. It's my way of showing support for fresh new teachers and racking up karma points. I used to get disappointed if people don't reciprocate the favors, but now I've learned that karma is not about how others returning the favors; it's about how I feel about my own chosen actions, which should be a reward in itself.

Anyways, there was one class that was nothing like Ashtanga but I really enjoyed it, and another that I honestly hated. I was wondering why I had such adverse reactions to certain power classes even though I  really appreciate the teachers' enthusiasm and efforts. The initial criteria that come to mind are the sequencing of asanas, the pace and rhythm with which the teacher takes us into poses, and the clarity of the teacher's instructions. After today's gorgeous Ashtanga class, another answer dawned on me: I am addicted to the generation of prana in yoga classes.

To me, if there's no linking of breath to movement, it should not be considered as a yoga class. I guess many of the new teachers, especially those with fitness backgrounds, are too eager to challenge the students, making them hold a tough pose for what seems to be an eternity, or sequence the poses in a way they might as well label as circus or bootcamp training. It's nice that the class challenges the muscles, but the fact that I cannot breath with my movements through the asana sequence they designed bugs me like crazy! I noticed in today's Ashtanga class that the strong ujjayi breathing carried me through tough poses/vinyasas and half way through the sequence I felt energized by my breathing, and had higher energy than at the beginning of class! I think sometimes a teacher's enthusiasm can uplift the entire class (like my rocket yoga classes), and for today's case my own breathing helped me build up more energy. With the power class I liked, I'm not sure if it was the teacher's Anusara training or his martial arts background, but even though he broke his class up into different segments with pauses in between (where I learned to get into a handstand with assists, woohoo!), he seemed to pay a lot of attention to breathing and energy flow in the warm up and cool down sequences.

So, I guess the verdict is that I'm a breathing/prana junkie. For my friends who are not fans of Ashtanga, or who love power classes for the sheer challenge on the muscular body, I'm guessing they haven't really experienced a really good pranyama practice yet. I also appreciate that one first needs to be able to comfortably get into a good proportion of the poses in Asthanga before being able to enjoy an ease of rhythmic breathing, and that takes a good period of dedicated regular practice.

p.s. For my personal record, my heels lifted a millimeter off the ground for kurmasana today for the first time. Woohoo :)

More Ashtanga videos!

The Ashtanga power couple's at it again (Intermediate series and Advanced B?)... I love these guys as well as their dogs!! What a beautiful family :) Great music accompaniment too.

One of the most awesome yoga practice I've ever had despite my achy shoulders and hip discomfort

I've always felt great after most of my yoga practices, but today I felt like I was over the moon.

Practice today was rocket yoga. I know I know, not the "real" authentic Ashtanga series. My shoulders were not feeling their best. My elbows complained at chaturangas. My hip flexors started feeling funny half way through class. I wore the wrong pants so I couldn't do most of my arm balances. I'll admit it here. I'm a cheater. I bought myself some over-priced Lululemon pants because the fabric assists my legs in sticking onto my arms during crow pose and teddy bear handstands. Today my bare legs were not gripping my arms at all. I was slipping all over the place.

Despite all these inconveniences, I felt absolutely fantastic in class. A couple of my favorite teachers were taking today's class too and the sight of them always brings me happiness. Even though I know I'm always supposed to focus on my own practice I couldn't help sneaking peaks at what they were doing. I feel bad because I'm sure they felt the pressure from all the students constantly peaking at what they were doing and they haven't perfected all the poses either. But man, there were a few poses that did look like perfection. I felt like I saw the holy grail / gold standard a couple of times. Could almost hear angels singing a chorus in the background.

I'm starting to recognize a lot of the people in class. There are only a couple people whom I feel connected with, but having these enthusiastic keeners at all corners of the room, super excited like I was, with perma-smiles attached to their faces the whole class, made me feel so warm-hearted. The world would be a much better place if there were more people with their attitudes. I couldn't help but imagine I was bobbing up and down in a sea of positive bright energy, being supported and encouraged by this upbeat vibration, with a warm, caring, authentic, confident voice (of the teacher) guiding the way, leading us on an amazing journey. There were no judgements, no self-doubts. We just tried whatever crazy poses our teacher asked us to do.  Didn't matter if we flopped out of an arm balance or couldn't get into a pose at all. The fact that a few of the yogis could actually accomplish the advanced poses was good enough for us all. It's the group effort that counts.

After class we walked out of the classroom feeling like we just got off of a super fun roller coast ride together. We chatted like little kiddies on sugar high discussing about our super dooper awesome field trip - "Oh my god, did you see teacher so and so's perfectly straight leg up into the air in that pose?" "I managed to get one foot briefly behind my head! How cool was that!" "Did you hear me let out a tiny scream of 'yes!' when I succeeded in going from crow pose hopping back to chaturanga?"

For about 90 minutes, I felt like I was the luckiest person in the world, to be able to experience being a kid again at 30 years old, for once not beating myself up for not trying hard enough focusing on my breathing the whole time, or self-critical of how I wasn't doing my best in striving for perfection in asanas. I wasn't concerned about how gross I looked in my messed up hair or my sweaty scrunched up attire, and none of my classmates cared either. I simply enjoyed embarking on a challenging practice with some amazing folks who are all relatively new to yoga (less than 5 years of practice), who can do astonishing things with their bodies, who are non-judgmental, non-egotistical, non-self-critical, just excited to practice hard and attempt new personal best accomplishments. Now, how often do you get to experience this? I feel like I've just had a taste of heaven.

p.s. The creator of Rocket Yoga, Larry Schultz, passed away a few days ago and we paid tribute to him at the practice. It's kind of surreal.

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.

Best Ashtanga practice video EVER!!

This video really demonstrates the awesomeness of Ashtanga. (By the way, I've never realized there's so much upper body movement while holding downward dog pose). I love the kitty at the end of the video! Actually all the pets waited until the end of practice before cuddling up to the yogis... so cute! I don't even know which crazy advanced series the guy's doing on the left but it rocks! I can only hope my primary series will come close to the woman's level in this video some day (end of this year? next year?)