The studio where I practice has an enormous floor to ceiling mirror. Subtract five points.
I’m not the only person who has experienced something in the range of displeasure to disgust looking into it. I overheard a longtime student - an attractive woman in her 30s - say that she always chose her spot to avoid the mirror. The women around her commiserated.
If I was going to survive at this studio, something needed to change.
Jessica became my teacher. This beautiful yoga instructor wedged personal yoga practice between her classes. Looking through the window, one could watch her sitting inches away from the mirror, staring into her own eyes as she practiced. Long curly blond hair, always hanging free, large earrings adorning her dimpled cheeks. Jessica stared as though the very act had created the beauty - the act of not being afraid to love herself.
And so I began to practice in the front row.
At first I closed one eye and looked through the other. Then I opened both and stared mostly at my feet. And then I just pretended to be Jessica - began, for an hour or so during practice, to look into my own eyes. I did this for three months.
I don’t practice by the mirror anymore. That’s headstand zone and I’m staying out of it. I moved to the back row, where I really belong.
But I’m no longer afraid to look in the mirror. Even if I don’t look like I’m 20 or whatever it is the media tells us we should look like. My belly isn’t concave. My yoga pants are not sexy hot. My arms look suspiciously like my grandmother’s.
But now, when I look in the mirror, I just see Diane practicing yoga.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Day 20 - Not Very Yogic
"That's not very yogic" is an expression tossed around in certain circles. I'm not exactly sure what it means. Inferring from context, I'd guess "not very nice."
Being nice is something I ascribe to. See ten rules for life on Day 18.
Maybe I need supplements to boost my niceness quotient. A prophytlactic guard against situations like this morning's.
I go into a crowded Starbucks, longing for a table, and just as my God-given good luck would have it, a man is packing up his table, putting away his laptop.
"Excuse me, sir. Are you leaving?"
"Yes!" He smiles. "Help yourself."
And I also smile at my good fortune in finding the table and having such a pleasant life generally. I place my blue coat on the table, reserving it, and order my coffee at the counter.
Tall skim latte in hand, I return and find my table is no longer there and my blue coat has been moved to a long laptop counter with no available seating.
I am not in the mood for this. I really want a table. I announce loudly for God and everyone to hear,
"Who moved the blue coat I put on a table to reserve it while I picked up my coffee?"
A hush settles over the crowded Starbucks. No one answers. I am not giving up this easily.
I turn to the couple sitting at a table which might have been mine.
"Did you move this blue coat?"
"No. It wasn't us. When we sat down the table was free. We've been sitting here for a long time."
But they probably know who the culprit is.
At this point there is only one likely suspect - a woman with laptop and earbuds who has been ignoring me. I hate that she shuts me out with her electronic silencers and decide she is not getting away with this. Interjecting myself into her presence I demand, "Did you move this coat?"
She attempts innocence.
"I thought it was left behind. I thought the table was free."
Right.
"Bullshit you did! Unplug that electronic crap and go drink your coffee at the bus stop. I want my God-given table back."
The manager joins us at this point. He stands beside me with his arms crossed over his chest, tapping his toes and staring grimly at the uber-wired table stealer.
Ashamed, she rips the cord from the outlet, shoves her machine in her bag and leaves the coffee shop red-faced with cappucino spilling down her sleeve.
And so, kind readers. Thank you for listening to all of the non-yogic things I really felt like saying this morning.
Being nice is something I ascribe to. See ten rules for life on Day 18.
Maybe I need supplements to boost my niceness quotient. A prophytlactic guard against situations like this morning's.
I go into a crowded Starbucks, longing for a table, and just as my God-given good luck would have it, a man is packing up his table, putting away his laptop.
"Excuse me, sir. Are you leaving?"
"Yes!" He smiles. "Help yourself."
And I also smile at my good fortune in finding the table and having such a pleasant life generally. I place my blue coat on the table, reserving it, and order my coffee at the counter.
Tall skim latte in hand, I return and find my table is no longer there and my blue coat has been moved to a long laptop counter with no available seating.
I am not in the mood for this. I really want a table. I announce loudly for God and everyone to hear,
"Who moved the blue coat I put on a table to reserve it while I picked up my coffee?"
A hush settles over the crowded Starbucks. No one answers. I am not giving up this easily.
I turn to the couple sitting at a table which might have been mine.
"Did you move this blue coat?"
"No. It wasn't us. When we sat down the table was free. We've been sitting here for a long time."
But they probably know who the culprit is.
At this point there is only one likely suspect - a woman with laptop and earbuds who has been ignoring me. I hate that she shuts me out with her electronic silencers and decide she is not getting away with this. Interjecting myself into her presence I demand, "Did you move this coat?"
She attempts innocence.
"I thought it was left behind. I thought the table was free."
Right.
"Bullshit you did! Unplug that electronic crap and go drink your coffee at the bus stop. I want my God-given table back."
The manager joins us at this point. He stands beside me with his arms crossed over his chest, tapping his toes and staring grimly at the uber-wired table stealer.
Ashamed, she rips the cord from the outlet, shoves her machine in her bag and leaves the coffee shop red-faced with cappucino spilling down her sleeve.
And so, kind readers. Thank you for listening to all of the non-yogic things I really felt like saying this morning.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Day 19 - Om
Chanting Om can be uncomfortable the first time.
A friend from church relayed how much she enjoyed yoga until they started "humming" and then she was weirded-out and never went back.
A college pal from Texas says:
"If they start humming or doing any shit like that.....any vocalization of any kind......I just get to giggling. Maybe I need somebody to EXPLAIN all this to me.
Today’s Blog Posting promises to make all things Om clear!
Om, for musicians, is a love-it or hate-it proposition. The aforementioned giggling and weirded-out friends are musicians. Heightened sound sensitivity is not always useful.
I, however, love Om.
Scroll back to the summer of 1986. The first time I experienced Om, the yoga class was held in a Sunday School room at St. Mark’s Church. We practiced Hot Yoga in the make-shift studio. Pre-yoga paraphernalia marketing, nobody had mats. We just practiced on the carpeted floor. I wore a t-shirt and khaki shorts. We didn’t know we needed straps, blocks, bolsters, blankets and special music. We had little idea where we were headed, but we were enthusiastic.
Six searching students handed over their trust to the yoga teacher. Per her instruction, we sat up straight. We counted our breaths. We felt the sweat drip down our temples. And then it happened.
As I sat in silence, I heard wind pass over the vocal folds of a corpse. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
Our teacher chanted Om.
It was the Real McCoy. No fako wanna-be Om. This woman had swallowed the universe. She had swallowed God whole.
Or maybe it was just a cool parlor trick. Either way, I was in and set out to learn chanting.
Wikipedia wasn’t around then. If it had been, I would have known that Om means "Yes" or "Will be" or "To become". That Om has different pronunciations and can be written in different kinds of script. I would have known that it’s interpreted differently in various kinds of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikkism. I would have known that the Mandukya Upanishd is entirely devoted to the explanation of the syllable, Om.
But I still wouldn’t have known anything.
A pet peeve is teachers who have the class chant Om while recorded music is playing, which begs the question, should we chant on the tonic or the dominant? What if the background music modulates part way through the Om? What about the relationship of sound to silence. They’re creating noise upon noise. Eating a snack when they’re already full.
A certain teacher, Erin, didn’t explain Om, but she said that it could be translated according to one’s inclination - Allah, Alleluia, Amen or Mom. (Actually I just made that last one up, but it’s nice, don’t you think?)
Erin used to have the class chant a continuous Om for one minute. Students breathed when needed and filled the room with resounding vibration. I’d like to try that for five minutes.
Or longer.
How about Sunday night I’ll invite 40 close friends for an evening of Olives and Om. Starting at 7:00 pm we’ll whet our whistles, clear our throats and begin to chant Om. We’ll sing the sacred sound into the plaster and the woodwork. We’ll only stop sporadically as we get thirsty, and then continue on when we're fortified. Pedestrians passing the house will say "What the f#!*!?" Especially the ones walking through the neighborhood with real estate agents.
House-hunting couples enjoying Washington, DC cherry blossoms will wake up and hear the music. "Honey" he will say. "Did you hear that? The robins are chirping, the wind is rustling through the redbuds, and the neighbors chant Om when the sun sets. Wouldn't you like to move to Veazey Street?""
A friend from church relayed how much she enjoyed yoga until they started "humming" and then she was weirded-out and never went back.
A college pal from Texas says:
"If they start humming or doing any shit like that.....any vocalization of any kind......I just get to giggling. Maybe I need somebody to EXPLAIN all this to me.
Today’s Blog Posting promises to make all things Om clear!
Om, for musicians, is a love-it or hate-it proposition. The aforementioned giggling and weirded-out friends are musicians. Heightened sound sensitivity is not always useful.
I, however, love Om.
Scroll back to the summer of 1986. The first time I experienced Om, the yoga class was held in a Sunday School room at St. Mark’s Church. We practiced Hot Yoga in the make-shift studio. Pre-yoga paraphernalia marketing, nobody had mats. We just practiced on the carpeted floor. I wore a t-shirt and khaki shorts. We didn’t know we needed straps, blocks, bolsters, blankets and special music. We had little idea where we were headed, but we were enthusiastic.
Six searching students handed over their trust to the yoga teacher. Per her instruction, we sat up straight. We counted our breaths. We felt the sweat drip down our temples. And then it happened.
As I sat in silence, I heard wind pass over the vocal folds of a corpse. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.
Our teacher chanted Om.
It was the Real McCoy. No fako wanna-be Om. This woman had swallowed the universe. She had swallowed God whole.
Or maybe it was just a cool parlor trick. Either way, I was in and set out to learn chanting.
Wikipedia wasn’t around then. If it had been, I would have known that Om means "Yes" or "Will be" or "To become". That Om has different pronunciations and can be written in different kinds of script. I would have known that it’s interpreted differently in various kinds of Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikkism. I would have known that the Mandukya Upanishd is entirely devoted to the explanation of the syllable, Om.
But I still wouldn’t have known anything.
A pet peeve is teachers who have the class chant Om while recorded music is playing, which begs the question, should we chant on the tonic or the dominant? What if the background music modulates part way through the Om? What about the relationship of sound to silence. They’re creating noise upon noise. Eating a snack when they’re already full.
A certain teacher, Erin, didn’t explain Om, but she said that it could be translated according to one’s inclination - Allah, Alleluia, Amen or Mom. (Actually I just made that last one up, but it’s nice, don’t you think?)
Erin used to have the class chant a continuous Om for one minute. Students breathed when needed and filled the room with resounding vibration. I’d like to try that for five minutes.
Or longer.
How about Sunday night I’ll invite 40 close friends for an evening of Olives and Om. Starting at 7:00 pm we’ll whet our whistles, clear our throats and begin to chant Om. We’ll sing the sacred sound into the plaster and the woodwork. We’ll only stop sporadically as we get thirsty, and then continue on when we're fortified. Pedestrians passing the house will say "What the f#!*!?" Especially the ones walking through the neighborhood with real estate agents.
House-hunting couples enjoying Washington, DC cherry blossoms will wake up and hear the music. "Honey" he will say. "Did you hear that? The robins are chirping, the wind is rustling through the redbuds, and the neighbors chant Om when the sun sets. Wouldn't you like to move to Veazey Street?""
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Day 18 - 10 Rules for Life and Yoga
1. be on time
2. practice today so I can practice tomorrow
3. remember the difference between pleasure and pain
4. don’t buy anything new except shoes and underwear
5. don’t drive when I can walk
6. don’t get fat
7 be kind
8 even at home
9. if at all possible
10. the teacher is not always right.
2. practice today so I can practice tomorrow
3. remember the difference between pleasure and pain
4. don’t buy anything new except shoes and underwear
5. don’t drive when I can walk
6. don’t get fat
7 be kind
8 even at home
9. if at all possible
10. the teacher is not always right.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Day 17 - Smiling
After 17 days of yoga, I find that I’m smiling more. I’m not doing this on purpose. Yoga is rearranging my facial structure.
By nature, I am not a smiling kind of person. It might be a very happy day, but friends and relations ask, "What’s wrong?" When I attend weddings or smiling kinds of events, I come home with my face aching from unusual muscular effort. My 10-year-old-son used to tell me to turn up the corners of my mouth when I picked him up at school so I wouldn't look so mean. He poked his finger at my lips to show me how.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s smiling meditation interests me. In "Eat, Pray, Love" her Balinese medicine man prescribes sustained smiling meditation every day. He tells her that not only her lips, but her entire body and especially her liver must smile. This was after meditating daily on her death in the ashram. Death meditation I understand. Smiling meditation sounds too hard.
That seems to be changing.
The new positive energy reminds me of a certain high I experienced while practicing for an organ concert at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Each day, I spent long hours playing an enormous and beautiful organ that was situated in the loft of the basilica. The building’s soaring height, flooded with stained glass light, intoxicated me with pleasure. One afternoon, in the middle of this intensive concert preparation, I ran into a priest friend - a fairly ancient man who was a bit slow moving and stooped. "How are you?", the old priest asked. I obviously had radiance bursting out of my body. "Fantastic!" I replied. Then the old priest asked, with a twinkle in his eye, "How is your husband?"
By nature, I am not a smiling kind of person. It might be a very happy day, but friends and relations ask, "What’s wrong?" When I attend weddings or smiling kinds of events, I come home with my face aching from unusual muscular effort. My 10-year-old-son used to tell me to turn up the corners of my mouth when I picked him up at school so I wouldn't look so mean. He poked his finger at my lips to show me how.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s smiling meditation interests me. In "Eat, Pray, Love" her Balinese medicine man prescribes sustained smiling meditation every day. He tells her that not only her lips, but her entire body and especially her liver must smile. This was after meditating daily on her death in the ashram. Death meditation I understand. Smiling meditation sounds too hard.
That seems to be changing.
The new positive energy reminds me of a certain high I experienced while practicing for an organ concert at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Each day, I spent long hours playing an enormous and beautiful organ that was situated in the loft of the basilica. The building’s soaring height, flooded with stained glass light, intoxicated me with pleasure. One afternoon, in the middle of this intensive concert preparation, I ran into a priest friend - a fairly ancient man who was a bit slow moving and stooped. "How are you?", the old priest asked. I obviously had radiance bursting out of my body. "Fantastic!" I replied. Then the old priest asked, with a twinkle in his eye, "How is your husband?"
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Day 16 - Intentions
At the beginning of yoga class, teachers often say "close your eyes and set an intention for your practice." Again at the end of class they will ask the class to recall their intentions.
My intentions vary. Originally they were along the lines of, "Intention? What the hell's an Intention?" After a few months of that I began setting the intention, "To Survive the Class".
Now my most common intention has been "Healing for Myself." Some days I practice at a higher level and intend, "Healing for Others" or "Being a Good and Holy Person All Day Long" or the simplified version of that, "Not Being a Snot to My Family".
Today the intention that came to me was "Strength". To be strong in class and after class. I'm not the strongest practitioner. I'm a back row weenie. I do chaturangas on my knees and side plank with one knee down. Headstands are science fiction.
But today was my Strong Day. Even so, there came a point when I substituted a "Fuck That Asana" and just lay on my back while the rest of the class did ab work. It was still a great practice - one of my best. I like working out next to Josh who also modifies all of his poses.
I'm going to start keeping a list of my yoga intentions in the word processing document where I keep a daily weight log. Today will read:
March 24, 2011 STRENGTH 142 pounds
Which is not really my fault. It must have been last night's salty Gruyere and Sausage Stratta that did it, or maybe it was the third serving. So much for good intentions.
My intentions vary. Originally they were along the lines of, "Intention? What the hell's an Intention?" After a few months of that I began setting the intention, "To Survive the Class".
Now my most common intention has been "Healing for Myself." Some days I practice at a higher level and intend, "Healing for Others" or "Being a Good and Holy Person All Day Long" or the simplified version of that, "Not Being a Snot to My Family".
Today the intention that came to me was "Strength". To be strong in class and after class. I'm not the strongest practitioner. I'm a back row weenie. I do chaturangas on my knees and side plank with one knee down. Headstands are science fiction.
But today was my Strong Day. Even so, there came a point when I substituted a "Fuck That Asana" and just lay on my back while the rest of the class did ab work. It was still a great practice - one of my best. I like working out next to Josh who also modifies all of his poses.
I'm going to start keeping a list of my yoga intentions in the word processing document where I keep a daily weight log. Today will read:
March 24, 2011 STRENGTH 142 pounds
Which is not really my fault. It must have been last night's salty Gruyere and Sausage Stratta that did it, or maybe it was the third serving. So much for good intentions.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Day 15 - Yoga Riddle
How are advanced yoga poses like love affairs?
(scroll down for answer)
They're easier to get into than to get out of.
(scroll down for answer)
They're easier to get into than to get out of.
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