Last night, I did something very uncharacteristic. Instead of exploring the Advanced Vinyasa class I had initially planned on, I went to a Hip Hop Yoga class. For those who have never been in a Hip Hop Yoga class think blaring hip hop music (so loud that the teacher has to wear a mic so that students can hear her), crowded room, lots of "flow" in the sequence, abdominal work and lots of sweat.
So, what in the world is someone who just finished a training that is focused heavily on alignment and tradition and who regularly practices Ashtanga (where there is no music and a heavy emphasis on using the sound of your breath as a guide) and who does not particularly enjoy hip hop music doing taking a Hip Hop Yoga class?! Well, I'll tell you.
#1). I realized that I was beginning to have an "aversion" to it. Aversion is one of the kleshas (a.k.a "obstacles") listed in the Yoga Sutras as preventing someone from acting correctly and is one of the causes of suffering, and, basically, it prevents you from fully experiencing yoga (at least that's my understanding of it). So, aversion, is usually associated with identifying with a painful experience. For a very simple example: you tried broccoli at one point in your life, hated it and decided that you were just somebody that hates broccoli and doesn't even attempt eating it ever again (even though it's good for you). Or, this is one way prejudice can be explained. You have one painful or unpleasant experience with one type of person, decide that all people of that particular type will be just like that and then end up treating them all poorly because of the one interaction with that first person. You carry the hurt/painful/unpleasant experience with you, as a part of you, and allow it to influence/color your actions towards people and things. So, what does this have to do with Hip Hop Yoga? I don't particularly care for hip hop music. I think I have all of about 5 hip hop type songs in my library of music. I don't like the lyrics, the culture or behavior that usually accompanies it. With regards to combining it with yoga, I understand that using that kind of music helps bring in a lot of people who might not otherwise try yoga, but it also strikes a nerve with the part of me that is getting annoyed at the "watering down" of yoga. However. The person who was teaching this class is a friend of mine and I've been wanting to take a class of her's for a while, especially after really listening to her teach the class on Tuesday night while I was running the front desk at the studio. She wasn't just calling out poses and leading people through a sequence, she was actually teaching them yoga. The problem was, "I hate hip hop music!...And just really loud music in general!" I think it was at that point that I realized what this was turning into...that I had such an aversion to the music and what it represented that it was preventing me from taking a class from a friend and from learning from her. That is when a preference or dislike for something becomes a klesha.
#2) I was talking with someone at the condo earlier that day about doing things outside your comfort zone. For a lot of people, sitting in silence is really hard. I'm well accustomed to it. It is not usually hard for me to concentrate in silence or find that sense of "dropping-in" during a yoga class when there is no music. Many times, I prefer it--especially after my experience in the Mala. So, I realized that my challenge isn't practicing in silence--it's practicing among noise. That reminded me of something I read in one of the many yoga books that I had to read during the training: that it is one thing to find concentration or bliss (or whatever) in an ashram, or holy place, or on a mountain top, but it is quite another to find it in the middle New York City. I think it's also similar to the concepts talked about in sutra 1.12:
"Both practice and nonreaction are required to still the patterning of consciousness (Chip Hartranft translation)." Or, as another translation puts it, "The mind can reach the state of Yoga through practice [abhyasa] and detachment [vairagya] (Desikachar translation)."
It's the idea of not reacting to the things that happen around you, of not getting attached to the experience. Chip Hartranft describes it as "The will to observe experience without reaction...the willingness to let a phenomenon arise without reacting to it." So, this just seemed like it was an appropriate challenge: could I still use my breath, still keep my focus and attention to my alignment and still do my own practice without reacting to the hip hop music, or being in a super crowded room? Not only did I start seeing that this would be a challenge in non-reaction, or detachment, but it would also require me to take my concentration to another level.
#3). After listening to her class on Tuesday night, it also just sounded like a lot of fun. And, as Jennie said during the training, "fun is a good reason to do something." Even my Ashtanga teacher has said during class, "yoga is supposed to be fun, if you don't have fun, then you won't come back...and then we would miss you." I just realized how serious I was getting about things and that it was starting to make me unhappy. Something I wrote in my application to the YogaWorks training was that yoga has a tendency to get very serious, so it's important to balance it with a light heart. This was an attempt to remember that.
So, with all that in mind, I went to Hip Hop Yoga class night with the "intention" of being open to what was happening in the class but detached enough from the hip hop yoga to hear it. The class was fantastic, just my pace. It ended up being really small for that class--maybe 70 people instead of the usual 100--and fairly mellow (again, when compared to usual classes). My friend could tell that most of the people there were feeling very low energy--they were super quiet, very uncharacteristic of the "hip hop yogis." So, she still did enough strength and ab work to make us sweat (since that is what the majority of people coming to that Hip Hop Yoga class are looking for) but not enough to kill everyone in the room...just enough to wake them up. She's a very talented teacher who really takes care of her students--both with her attention and with her choice of instructions. It was like she knew just what to say to get them to take care of themselves during the class--Jennie would call it "making them take responsibility for their own practice." And you can tell that she puts a lot of thought and effort into her classes, that she doesn't just throw them together at the last minute. I think she altered what she was going to teach a little bit because of everyone's energy, but that's the mark of a good teacher. She also incorporated silence in all the right spots and did a fun thing during the Surya Namaskar section: she shut the lights off. The only light in the room was from the candles and outside street lights. One of the "limbs" or steps in yoga is "pratyahara," also known as sense withdrawal. According to one book I've read, that is something that just happens as a result of increasing your concentration, but this was a good way to start introducing the idea--without even saying that's why it was happening! Sneaky, sneaky :)
I was also really happy to see that I found my concentration again. My friend said that I was "super mindful in my practice." Wednesday night that concentration was missing, like I wasn't entirely present. Last night, I was much more present and totally focused on what I was doing. After a while it was like I was barely registering the music that was being played--which is exactly what I was working towards. I was also reminded of something else--something I first told someone last year and try to live by but, immediately after the training, was forgetting: "it's all yoga." Last year, I told someone that there were many different styles of yoga because there are many different types of people, so people need different ways to connect to it. But, that they were all basically trying to teach the same things. I could hear it in my head Wednesday night, "I don't want this, I want the way they taught in my training!" Even though a lot of the language was the same. Jennie had told us that there is a tendency for the YogaWorks training to turn you into a little bit of a "yoga-snob," where you won't settle for anything that's not as good as or as similar to a YogaWorks style class or instructor, but that it eventually wears off. "Besides, it's all yoga." The Hip Hop Yoga class was a good reminder of that. It was a really great experience and a great learning lesson. My friend is a good teacher and I could definitely see myself in that class again--hip hop music and all.
Showing posts with label yoga sutras. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yoga sutras. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Last Day of Yoga Teacher Training (Part 3 of 3): Closing Circle
It felt like there was so much that I went through on the last day of yoga teacher training, that I had to break it up into 3 sections. As this is number 3, there are two before this one: the first about my teaching practicum, the second about the Mala that we did afterwards.
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After the Mala, we breaked for about 30 minutes and then we came back to the room and formed a circle, much like we usually do after our morning practice to discuss the sequence that we did. Except this time the inside of the circle was cleared of mats, props, water bottles and anything else that might have been in the area. On Saturday, Natasha gave us 3 index cards and on each of them we were supposed to write these things:
1. A sutra from the Yoga Sutras that either resonates with us or that we feel we need to work on
2. Something that we are taking with us from the training
3. Something that we are leaving behind (this is why the circle was empty. There was a small basket for us to place those cards so that we would have the support of the whole group in "leaving it behind." The teacher threw them away afterwards, I would have preferred a ceremonial fire, but that works just as well, lol)
I was back and forth on which sutra I wanted to write on that card. The first 3 sutras have been speaking to me a lot lately. They're so simple, but, at the same time, they're what the entire Yoga Sutras is about. In the first 3 sutras, you get everything in a nutshell: who, what, where, when, and why. The entire rest of the Yoga Sutras (as I understand it right now) is trying to explain the "how," with recurring emphasis on what the first three are trying to tell you.
The first sutra, "Atha Yoganusasanam," Now begins the study/practice of yoga, gives you the where and the when of the yoga. When and where do you practice it? Now. Right now, wherever you are, whenever you are. It's not just reserved for the 90 minutes in a yoga class. I was telling myself that a lot during the last couple of weeks when my nerves started freaking out over the tests. That this is the real yoga practice. Obviously, this isn't my first time dealing with stress. But, it is the first time that it really feels like I have to use a different method of dealing with it. From running, I learned how to deal with stress by ignoring sensation and continuing to keep moving. Useful in many ways, but not when you need your full attention and brain to be working, that kind of disassociation feels like it closes off access to a part of your brain that you need. Could just be me, but that's my take on it. From karate, I learned to tense up in anticipation of an attack and start anticipating possible counter moves and how I might handle things. Again, very useful way of dealing with some things, but not when you need to stay calm and react to the things that are happening in the present. And that is what the yoga asks us to do: to be open enough to feel through all of the sensation to find the calm "still point" and then act from that place as whatever the present situation asks for. As you may have noticed from the first posting of the "last day of yoga teacher training," I have not figured out how to do that yet, lol. How to take that part of my yoga "off the mat." So, I didn't feel very comfortable with the idea of talking about an idea that I couldn't really access myself. The second sutra, "Yogas Citta Vritti Nirodhah," Yoga is the calming/restraint of the fluctuations of the mind, tells you the "what" of yoga. Literally, "Yoga is...." It also tells you, in that one sutra, that Yoga isn't an end point, it's a process, an action: "the calming/restraint of..." Pretty significant little detail ;-)
But it's the third one that tells you why you practice it, and for me, it's all about the why. Without the why you do something, everything else has very little meaning. "Tada drastuh svarupe 'vasthanam," Then the Seer [Self/pure consciousness] abides in its own nature." This is the sutra that I wrote on the card. I went into the yoga teacher training feeling a little unclear of exactly what I was looking for. Did I want to teach? No, not really. Could I see myself doing it at some point in the future? Possibly. It's pretty clear right now that it is not something I am ready for. More knowledge, deepen my practice, etc. Yes, a lot of that. But I think now it was to remind me of why I keep practicing. With all the turmoil of the last year and the uncertainness of my future, it was hard to remember why I kept putting myself through the practice when sometimes, it wasn't even enjoyable. This is why. Because when the mind is calm and quiet, you can feel and hear your true, big S "Self." This is the part of you that never changes and is always there, despite whatever jobs you work, crises you go through or body parts that are injured. There is always a part of you that is pure and free of labels, fears, habits and prejudices and knows exactly "what to do." The whole point to doing all this yoga is to find and realize which is the big S "Self" and then act from that place. It has only been when I practice yoga that I really feel that connection. For however long, either the entire 90 minutes of a class or just the 5 at the end, I could usually find a point when I--big S "Self"--feel totally present. During those times, I never want the practice to end. That is the "why" I practice, and it feels important to remember it.
The thing that I am leaving behind...is too personal to share on here. But, I will just say that it is something that has caused great inner turmoil that I have been working very hard to free myself from for the last 2 years or so. This year, it loosened its grip a lot. Now, all it feels like I have to do is let it go and calmly walk away. No big drama, no big battle. Just done, served its purpose. That is what I left behind.
The thing I am taking with my from this training: my home practice. I've never really had one and the small amount that I did ceased to exist once I started practicing Mysore Ashtanga. I had "my" practice that I did every morning, I didn't "need" to do anything else. On the contrary, that is not my practice. I practice the Ashtanga series, yes. But I don't practice it my way. Not that there is anything wrong with that. If anything, after this training my appreciation and respect for Ashtanga has grown. But I have also had to practice a lot on my own--at home--in order to write the sequences for the training. And I discovered something: I practice differently when I am at home and no one is watching. I'm usually completely present and always give my best effort when I'm in studio classes. But there's a part of me that only shows up when I practice at home--the "inner teacher." When I'm in a class, that part of me is usually silent, largely because I'm letting myself be told what to do, rather than explore things and figure that out for myself. When I'm at home, I hold things longer and the poses actually somehow feel less strenuous. I also play and experiment with things in my practice when I am at home (like using blocks for my jump-throughs and using my camera to get a better sense of what my body is doing). None of that is present when I am in a class. The classes are important, because that's when I learn from my teachers. But I don't think that the real learning is setting in because I don't practice at home. It's as though I don't really practice something until I do it at home--away from outside influences.
So. We shared our sutras and then ran out of time to share anything else. But we did take the time to quietly drop our things to "leave behind" in the basket. We said "namaste" to each other and then we were done. We took group photos, which I hope to see soon, and spent several minutes sharing hugs, appreciation, etc...all the usual things that you do when you're saying good-bye to a group of people that you've shared an intense experience with (though with far more headstands and tree poses). It was very hard to say good-bye to Jennie. I really liked her teaching style and I learned a lot from her, I am sad that she teaches in another state. However, that other state is not that far away...a yoga road trip could definitely be in order ;-)
All in all, it was an amazing experience, though not quite in the way I expected it to be. I didn't come out "enlightened" or suddenly realizing that "I want to be a yoga teacher." Just with a stronger sense of what I was doing and what I was capable of, with a stronger sense of Self ;-)
___________________________________________________________________
After the Mala, we breaked for about 30 minutes and then we came back to the room and formed a circle, much like we usually do after our morning practice to discuss the sequence that we did. Except this time the inside of the circle was cleared of mats, props, water bottles and anything else that might have been in the area. On Saturday, Natasha gave us 3 index cards and on each of them we were supposed to write these things:
1. A sutra from the Yoga Sutras that either resonates with us or that we feel we need to work on
2. Something that we are taking with us from the training
3. Something that we are leaving behind (this is why the circle was empty. There was a small basket for us to place those cards so that we would have the support of the whole group in "leaving it behind." The teacher threw them away afterwards, I would have preferred a ceremonial fire, but that works just as well, lol)
I was back and forth on which sutra I wanted to write on that card. The first 3 sutras have been speaking to me a lot lately. They're so simple, but, at the same time, they're what the entire Yoga Sutras is about. In the first 3 sutras, you get everything in a nutshell: who, what, where, when, and why. The entire rest of the Yoga Sutras (as I understand it right now) is trying to explain the "how," with recurring emphasis on what the first three are trying to tell you.
The first sutra, "Atha Yoganusasanam," Now begins the study/practice of yoga, gives you the where and the when of the yoga. When and where do you practice it? Now. Right now, wherever you are, whenever you are. It's not just reserved for the 90 minutes in a yoga class. I was telling myself that a lot during the last couple of weeks when my nerves started freaking out over the tests. That this is the real yoga practice. Obviously, this isn't my first time dealing with stress. But, it is the first time that it really feels like I have to use a different method of dealing with it. From running, I learned how to deal with stress by ignoring sensation and continuing to keep moving. Useful in many ways, but not when you need your full attention and brain to be working, that kind of disassociation feels like it closes off access to a part of your brain that you need. Could just be me, but that's my take on it. From karate, I learned to tense up in anticipation of an attack and start anticipating possible counter moves and how I might handle things. Again, very useful way of dealing with some things, but not when you need to stay calm and react to the things that are happening in the present. And that is what the yoga asks us to do: to be open enough to feel through all of the sensation to find the calm "still point" and then act from that place as whatever the present situation asks for. As you may have noticed from the first posting of the "last day of yoga teacher training," I have not figured out how to do that yet, lol. How to take that part of my yoga "off the mat." So, I didn't feel very comfortable with the idea of talking about an idea that I couldn't really access myself. The second sutra, "Yogas Citta Vritti Nirodhah," Yoga is the calming/restraint of the fluctuations of the mind, tells you the "what" of yoga. Literally, "Yoga is...." It also tells you, in that one sutra, that Yoga isn't an end point, it's a process, an action: "the calming/restraint of..." Pretty significant little detail ;-)
But it's the third one that tells you why you practice it, and for me, it's all about the why. Without the why you do something, everything else has very little meaning. "Tada drastuh svarupe 'vasthanam," Then the Seer [Self/pure consciousness] abides in its own nature." This is the sutra that I wrote on the card. I went into the yoga teacher training feeling a little unclear of exactly what I was looking for. Did I want to teach? No, not really. Could I see myself doing it at some point in the future? Possibly. It's pretty clear right now that it is not something I am ready for. More knowledge, deepen my practice, etc. Yes, a lot of that. But I think now it was to remind me of why I keep practicing. With all the turmoil of the last year and the uncertainness of my future, it was hard to remember why I kept putting myself through the practice when sometimes, it wasn't even enjoyable. This is why. Because when the mind is calm and quiet, you can feel and hear your true, big S "Self." This is the part of you that never changes and is always there, despite whatever jobs you work, crises you go through or body parts that are injured. There is always a part of you that is pure and free of labels, fears, habits and prejudices and knows exactly "what to do." The whole point to doing all this yoga is to find and realize which is the big S "Self" and then act from that place. It has only been when I practice yoga that I really feel that connection. For however long, either the entire 90 minutes of a class or just the 5 at the end, I could usually find a point when I--big S "Self"--feel totally present. During those times, I never want the practice to end. That is the "why" I practice, and it feels important to remember it.
The thing that I am leaving behind...is too personal to share on here. But, I will just say that it is something that has caused great inner turmoil that I have been working very hard to free myself from for the last 2 years or so. This year, it loosened its grip a lot. Now, all it feels like I have to do is let it go and calmly walk away. No big drama, no big battle. Just done, served its purpose. That is what I left behind.
The thing I am taking with my from this training: my home practice. I've never really had one and the small amount that I did ceased to exist once I started practicing Mysore Ashtanga. I had "my" practice that I did every morning, I didn't "need" to do anything else. On the contrary, that is not my practice. I practice the Ashtanga series, yes. But I don't practice it my way. Not that there is anything wrong with that. If anything, after this training my appreciation and respect for Ashtanga has grown. But I have also had to practice a lot on my own--at home--in order to write the sequences for the training. And I discovered something: I practice differently when I am at home and no one is watching. I'm usually completely present and always give my best effort when I'm in studio classes. But there's a part of me that only shows up when I practice at home--the "inner teacher." When I'm in a class, that part of me is usually silent, largely because I'm letting myself be told what to do, rather than explore things and figure that out for myself. When I'm at home, I hold things longer and the poses actually somehow feel less strenuous. I also play and experiment with things in my practice when I am at home (like using blocks for my jump-throughs and using my camera to get a better sense of what my body is doing). None of that is present when I am in a class. The classes are important, because that's when I learn from my teachers. But I don't think that the real learning is setting in because I don't practice at home. It's as though I don't really practice something until I do it at home--away from outside influences.
So. We shared our sutras and then ran out of time to share anything else. But we did take the time to quietly drop our things to "leave behind" in the basket. We said "namaste" to each other and then we were done. We took group photos, which I hope to see soon, and spent several minutes sharing hugs, appreciation, etc...all the usual things that you do when you're saying good-bye to a group of people that you've shared an intense experience with (though with far more headstands and tree poses). It was very hard to say good-bye to Jennie. I really liked her teaching style and I learned a lot from her, I am sad that she teaches in another state. However, that other state is not that far away...a yoga road trip could definitely be in order ;-)
All in all, it was an amazing experience, though not quite in the way I expected it to be. I didn't come out "enlightened" or suddenly realizing that "I want to be a yoga teacher." Just with a stronger sense of what I was doing and what I was capable of, with a stronger sense of Self ;-)
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