Yoga Styles

Hiking on Sundays is one of the pleasurable activities I do each week. Some hikes are straight forward and relatively easy, some are more complicated, and some are downright difficult. I liken these hikes to the practice of yoga.

The easy hikes are those trails or roads that are clearly the path to follow; the more complicated ones usually are in the boonies and we have to follow ribbons marking the trail. As long as we follow the ribbons we can start and finish. Then there are those trails with a rainbow of colored ribbons of red, pink, yellow, green, blue, and white. We almost always get lost on those trails, winding up and down, searching for the right marker, which we do eventually as we hear someone's triumphant cry, "I found it!" And we love all the hikes, lost or not.

Long ago, original yoga practice involved few poses, and was taught one-on-one with a student (male only) who studied for many years under the tutelage of a guru, who taught not only yoga poses, but also proper personal and social behaviors, pranayama (breathing), and meditation. Nowadays, yoga has become a stand-alone practice, with many different styles and taught en mass in a classroom. A student can go to classes such as Iyengar, Ashtanga, Power, Bickram, Kundalini, Anusara, etc. Like the multi-colored ribbons on a trail, one can get seriously lost as to which path to follow. I usually encourage students to try out different yoga classes, much as I do myself. But I also want to encourage everyone to choose a certain direction as a foundation for personal practice. So that when one goes to different classes and enjoy different teachers and styles, the basic foundation remains.

For instance, I was trained in the Iyengar style by a teacher who studied under Iyengar for many years. This style stresses proper alignment, breathing and the use of props. Over the years, I have attended classes of other teaching styles. I enjoy them greatly and have learned to expand and modify various poses for a more fun practice for my class. But the foundation of alignment, breathing, and props remain intact, so that if one scratches the surface of the variation of poses I teach, one will find Iyengar leading the way.

Depending on your personality, and your purpose in practicing yoga, you can also search around and find just the style you like and follow that style. But keep the door open to enjoy all classes and flavors, even if you do get lost every now and then.

"Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate." --- Chuang-tzu ---

Namaste,

Clarie

Impatience

Remember the road rage that was so prevalent several years ago? People were getting hurt, some seriously. Drivers were nervous about any little irritation shown by other drivers. Road rage still exists. But recently I heard about a new rage. It’s call “sidewalk rage.”

Apparently some young people are getting upset by “old people” who are walking too slowly on the sidewalks. Sometimes older folks cause traffic slow down on sidewalks by socializing with their friends. The impatient young folks suggest creating special “Old People Sidewalks”. Some of them even plan to knock the old people on the back of their heads and push them aside.

When I first heard this report, it took me a while to realize that it is real, and then it dawned on me that impatience has become viral. We live in a world where everything becomes instantly available, or at least people expect them to be instantly available. The electronic age has created generations of young people impatient for instant results and instant gratification. That they even cannot appreciate the beauty of slowing down to socialize with friends and neighbors, like the old folks do, is a sad testimony of impatience overtaking the enjoyment of living in the moment.

My friends and I have a Sunday hiking group when we explore different parts of the island. Some hikes are easy and some very challenging, but always enjoyable. Not only do we get a good work out, we also take our time exploring the surroundings, finding exquisite flora and fauna, birds and bees (and stung by them). Through sliding on muddy slopes, stumbling among rocky hills, we learn to appreciate what we have, sometimes right in our “backyard.”. We don’t rush around to get the hikes finished as soon as possible, rather, we slow down.

Sometimes I hear yoga students grumbling on the slow progress they are making in reaching certain level of accomplishment. I like to point out that it is the “journey”, not the destination, that we yogis and yoginis look for. In fact, there is no “destination” in yoga practice. It is a life long journey, sometimes easy, sometimes hard, but always a present-moment experience. Patient dedication to our practice is accomplishment in itself.

I found this wonderful quote by James Keller, “Three hundred years ago a prisoner condemned to the Tower of London carved on the wall of the cell this sentiment to keep up his spirits during his long imprisonment: ‘It is not adversity that kills, but the impatience with which we bear adversity.’”

Let the old folks linger on the sidewalks.

Namaste,
Clarie

Lifes' Unexpected

Dear Yogis & Yoginis,

On the way back from a party one evening, a day after New Year's, I tripped on the wet, rain drenched, brick steps leading from the garage to our back yard (no, I had not been drinking!) Ordinarily, it's no big deal, I would just stumble a little and continue on. But that evening, I was carrying a large ceramic salad bowl, my favorite blue and white. As I stumbled, it slipped out of my hands. I stepped up, and reached down to catch the bowl. It hit the step, shattered into pieces in a split second. I stood up, dumbfounded, and upset that my favorite bowl was no more. Only a moment later, when I left the scene of the accident to open the door, that I saw blood all over the floor. One of the broken pieces had popped up and slashed my wrist, and my right foot was caught on the step and was cut as well.
After several stitches, and bandages were applied to my wrist and toe at the hospital, it was clear that I would not be able to apply any weight on my right hand and right foot for a while.
Suddenly, life had taken an unpleasant turn. Yoga and weight training had to stop; I had some difficulty walking and hiking; both of those were temporary inconveniences. Worst of all, I had a gash on my wrist that looked like a suicide attempt!
How often have we run into an unexpected happening, without being prepared for it. We have taken so much of our lives for granted. I was making good progress with yoga practice and weight training and was assuming that it would continue. Then suddenly everything had to stop. I could almost feel my newly gained muscles shriveling, my flexibility tightening, and my confidence dropping. Of course those "feelings" were mostly mental acrobats playing with me. I had to calm down and re-program my schedules to accommodate the new situation. It taught me a lesson to appreciate wellness and health. It also taught me to let go of the anxiety of not being able to continue "business as usual" by doing what I could for the time being as my wounds healed. Both wounds did heal, and despite the scars, I am happy to be back to my routines.
Embracing the constant changes we experience will allow us to become more flexible physically as yogis, but also more flexible and healthy mentally, able to let go of expectations, judgments, and cravings.

"There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stagecoach, it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place."
---Washington Irving ---

Namaste,
Clarie

Judgment

The other day, while waiting for our flight to Narita, we checked into the small and crowded Delta Lounge at SeaTac airport. The lounge is constantly overflowing with waiting passengers. It is definitely inadequate to service the number of people continuously entering into the lounge for a little relaxation time before boarding for long flights. It was no different that day.

As we wandered around the room looking for a place to sit, one woman did remove a bag from the seat next to her and offered me the chair. After settling down with my coffee, I looked across the room, and noticed a man seated next to a vacant chair. On the chair was a winter coat. I rather expected him to remove the coat so someone else could sit there. But he did not. After a while I was getting irritated by his inconsideration. People were walking by constantly, yet he seemed oblivious to the scene. I thought how selfish of him to occupy two seats while many others were standing. Negative feeling filled my mind.

After about five minutes, a woman walked over to the chair, picked up the coat, pushed it aside and sat down. That's when I realized that the coat did not belong to the man at all! I felt instantly remorseful for judging the poor innocent man who did nothing wrong.

I began reflecting on how often we have misjudged someone, whether through ignorance of the situation, lack of evidence, or through a prejudicial mind, we create conflicts, confusion, hurtful feelings, and unnecessary hostile environment. When we harbor expectations, we develop judgments. Like the poor guy at the airport lounge, he didn't do anything wrong, but I misread the situation, developed the expectation that he should have shared the chair with others, and he was perfectly innocent. Fortunately I didn't give him the stink-eye! Thomas F. Cleary said, "The excitable observer will pass judgment first and then make knowledge conform to judgment; the prudent observer will first learn to know and then judge according to knowledge." Obviously I was acting like an excitable observer.
Sometimes we also judge ourselves when we expect certain results in practicing yoga. I often hear people tell me, "I can't do the poses well enough." or "wait until I lose some weight." Some will attend one class and decide right away that everyone else is so much better than they are, so they are too embarrassed to come back. Self-judgment such as telling yourself "You're not good" or "You're great and you're better than others", are cause for low self esteem, or for being prideful. In yoga practice, we are all equal. There is no judgment, no competition, no expectation. We practice in perfect harmony with our body, with each moment as the right moment for where we should be: the blending of acceptance, enjoyment, and in the present moment.
"The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgment."
---- Jiddu Krishnamurti -----
Namaste,
Clarie