Olympic Effort

With the opening of the London Olympics this past weekend it seems fitting to insert a blog relating to the Olympics.

The way yoga practioners veiw the Olympics ranges from believing they should be abolished to those are people trying to get yoga in as an Olympic sport.

Clearly yoga means different things to different people.

For me yoga is an inner practice, not measured by outside standards or judgments.  Right from the first class I attended the message was "this is not a competition"- that message has stuck with me. In my instructor training at Kriaplu Centre, the message was again- allowing, accepting, trusting  and learning to "just be".  Life is full of  places where we feel we must be the best, or live up to expectations. It is refreshing, and powerful to have something that is done for its own sake that helps us connect to our true nature.

This does not mean  yoga is an opportunity to go to sleep. Following specific alignment instructions help a person stay injury free in a posture. Those instructions can also help get you into a pose you could not access on your own. Focusing our attention on specific instructions or attempting different and challenging poses are ways of waking up our awareness and  learning to be present to life's difficulties.

Of course there are people whose practice is awe inspiring and we want to emulate, but the journey is to recognise that and refocus our awareness back to what is true for us. Most of us who practice yoga struggle with wanting to be the best, do it right, or to please the teacher.... in my opinion turning yoga into a competition only feeds that side of our nature.

That being said the path to becoming an Olympic level athlete shares some essential elements of the yoga path. In particular I am referring to what Patanjali call the 3 supports: Tapas, Svadyaya, and Ishvara Pranidhana. 

1) Tapas: is sometimes translated as burning zeal, and physical discipline.  Not only are both the Olympic athlete and the traditional yogi deeply committed to the practice of their sport but all the related physical practices – rest, diet, etc. This kind of discipline requires what the yogis sometimes call burning zeal -an almost obsessive passion- without it the Olympic dream would not be reached. For most yogi’s the tapas is usually for health or oneness with our true nature, with so many people practicing yoga  I believe it is but ultimately it is an individual question- what inspires and motivates us to get to a class  or to do our own practice!?

 2) Svadhyaya: It is usually translated as self study. It refers to the inner work, study of your own patterns and nature as well as the study of the masters/teachers who have gone before you. For the modern Yogini this may involve studying sutras (ancient writings on the path of yoga) or simply studying with a teacher. It also involves a willingness to look at our inner experience with curiosity and kindness.

3) Isvara-pranidhana:  Faith, Surrender, Grace. This can also be translated as presence. Despite the hard work,  practice and the inner preparation, when it comes down the competition, an Olympic athlete must be fully present to the task at hand- which ultimately involves a letting go. As an observer it appears that it is also a case of grace that allows one person to finish a fraction of a second ahead of another and become “the best”in the world.

For the yogi it is through attention to the breath, and body that we come into presence (even  if it is only for a moment). In this place we may connect to our true nature, and a feeling of oneness with all that is. The result is that we gradually learn to live our lives as if each moment was as precious as winning an Olympic gold medal!

Namaste

Shauna

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Yoga

Reading about the experiences of others in the Teacher Training program, I must admit that I am somewhat envious of the early exposure to yoga that some individuals received. My household was more of a Jane Fonda workout kind of environment and the only thing my mother ever told me about yoga was that she had tried it once and found it incredibly boring (ironically, she became a convert to the joys of yoga about a year ago).

As a result of my lack of early exposure to yoga, I did not encounter and experiment with it until my early twenties. And I am somewhat abashed to admit that it was mainly a matter of economy that originally brought me to the yoga mat instead of some other form of exercise. At the time, I was a cash-strapped young person and most of the studios offered a free first class. Well, the word “free” had a Pavlovian effect on my friends so the next thing I knew, I was buying an only slightly irregular pair of discount sweatpants (I’m pretty sure this was before the term “yoga pants” had been coined) and hitting a circuit of introductory classes.

As I visited a variety of studios and experienced a few different styles of yoga, I felt my interest building and there is one class in particular that stands out for me. The instructor had asked us to lay on our back with the bottoms of our feet pressed into the wall. She then had us do a series of stretches with one of the legs and then place our feet back against the wall. What I discovered upon doing this was that one of my legs now actually seemed longer than the other. I was amazed at this. It made me feel like I had some sort of control over my body – a sensation that I had little familiarity with at that point.

Throughout the years, yoga was always in my life but always on the back burner. I never had enough time to go to classes, enough money; it didn’t fit into my schedule etc. Then as my life became more hectic, more filled with work and kids and stress, I realized that yoga needed to be brought forward to the front burner. Only by making a practice such as yoga a priority would I be able to gain back a feeling of control over my life. By making my practice a priority, I was making my self a priority.

It is my hope that through teaching, I will be able to help others to find the love of yoga and the connection with their true selves that I myself have experienced. Don’t get me wrong: my personal practice still has a long ways to go. But helping others to strive for deeper and more complete poses without “pushing” themselves will also help me to be kinder and more forgiving of myself, I believe.

As of this fall, I will be starting a volunteer position teaching a Beginner’s class at a local Family Centre. It is an undertaking about which I feel excited, but also very nervous.  However, in the same way that I knew it was time to pursue my interest in yoga more seriously, I know that it is now time to step forward and give teaching a try. For if there is no progress forward, then there is only stagnation, inertia, and ultimately, discontent. If I hadn’t donned those irregular, discount yoga sweats so many years ago then I would never have learned how much I love yoga and, likewise, unless I give teaching a try, I’ll never know if it’s something that works for me.

Wish me luck.

Namaste.

Catch My Breath

One morning four months ago, I woke up to a terrible noise. Off in the distance, massive bulldozers were tearing down the forest in our backyard. Without a word of warning, the neighbor had decided to clear cut the property bordering our yard. When the snow melted, the newly revealed devastation was overwhelming; the land lay gouged and strewn with deadfall too small to be of use for pulp processing.  I could not begin to fathom the loss of life- the trees, animals and our connection to Earth.

How shall I maintain my composure and balance over the upcoming years as the logging project marches toward the scheduled date when large tracts of land shall be harvested all around us? Vrksasana pose has become more difficult.

The yoga mat is my ballast when I can no longer focus. I broaden  the collarbones and descend the shoulderblades to recreate space and release the muscles adducting my heart. I practice breathing. After all these years of practice, why is it still so hard to breathe?

Where would I be without my mat? Yoga is my companion, my teacher. And yes, I know the forest will grow back eventually. Meanwhile I need to practice patience, balance and breathing.

By Heidi Martin

Heidi is a current member of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg 200 hour teacher training program.

An Alignment Practice-Journey from Student to Teacher

Trikonasana – Virabhadrasana – Parsvakonasana

It’s a beautiful spring morning as I enter the sunny yoga studio on Grosvenor Street.  I’m greeted with cheerful good mornings as I take an Angel Card: “Alignment”.  I frown.  Not quite as inspirational as I would have hoped.  I find a pen and sign my name onto the studio list.  “You write your name as if you were left handed.” My yoga teacher observes.  “I am left-handed.”  I reply.  And relate the quirky story of how I came to write with my right hand.  In kindergarten my teacher took on the arduous task of teaching 29 children (all armed with scissors) to cut along a straight line.  “Raise the hand you like to use best!”  She asked us.  29 little hands went up, 2 of which were left.  “I think it would be easier for this exercise if you were all right handed.”  And then I was!  Not only am I naturally left-handed; I am also naturally very compliant.

Trikonasana – Virabhadrasana – Parsvakonasana

“Ha. Ha.”  Says my yoga instructor.  “It just goes to show that you cannot suppress your true nature.”  I’m not sure if she remembers this exchange but I do… It made me want to be a yoga instructor.

Trikonasana –Virabhadrasana – Parsvakonasana

We moved a lot as kids, every few years.  It was sort of uncomfortable but mostly fun.  Each time we moved it gave us an opportunity to reinvent ourselves.  I would be better this time, more fun, less serious.  I should have new clothes; a new hair cut.  I liked to move.  I probably shouldn’t have married a Winnipegger.  They will tell you they will move but it’s not true.  They are family people.  Grounded.  That’s why I fell in love; but staying is still hard.

Trikonasana – Virabhadrasana – Parsvakonasana

What does it mean to continue practicing the same poses day after day on a mat that is barely as long as you are tall?  What does it mean to raise a family in a community that doesn’t let you forget?  To shop in the same stores and speak with the same people.  The body remembers – the people remember – and somehow you remember too.  The movements become less grand the adjustments more subtle.

Trikonasana – Virabhadrasana – Parsvakonasana

Yoga has taught me to be still, to be present, to ground, to move honouring my natural curves.   When I make a mistake on the mat I have to return and face the consequences the next day.  There is no running from the self.  And as the alignment becomes more refined the adjustments become subtle I find myself returning home.  I return to my mat day after day because it reminds me to return to my life day after day.  To face my mistakes, the people I love and the life that I work to create.

Trikonasana – Virabhadrasana – Parsvakonasana

Namaste.

Sarah  Swanson

Sarah is a member of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg  200hour Teacher Training Program

Evolution in Yoga Evolution in Me

By Kim Nelson

I remember as a child my thoughts of yoga as intriguing and mysterious. As I got older these ideas evolved into a vision of yoga involving standing on one’s head, sitting in the same position for extended periods of time and mental concentration exercises that led to an intangible experience called meditation.

 I knew there was more to it. I just didn’t know what it was. Eventually, armed with uncertainty and unfamiliarity, I ventured into my first yoga class. What first struck me most was that in a roomful of people, I could find my own place of privacy, solace, peace and profound silence. I never thought that I’d find that among other people. To me, that was something that could only occur if I was alone with no external stimuli. If I was perhaps in a bubble or if I had learned the mysterious, elusive art and science of meditation.

Yet, here I was having an experience different than my preconceived notions. There was something to this. It reached me and so began my journey. Almost five years later, I’m still practicing yoga, still learning and it still reaches me, still challenges me to know myself and to be true to myself.

Here are some of the things I have learned along the way. I can breathe. I can be quiet and still and be with myself. I can listen. I can become aware. I can feel. I can understand. I can surrender and let go. I can really breathe. I can be.

Our physical bodies are inextricably connected to our entire being in this human experience. I did not always believe this. Practicing the physical postures of yoga was my starting point to tuning into myself in a new way, opening doors to self awareness that had been closed.

Yoga has certainly branched out in a myriad of directions from its Sanskrit roots dating back thousands of years ago to the Sutras, the Upanishads and the Vedas. It has been through an evolution and continues to evolve. Yet what remains constant is its essence, what it always was, a path of discovery, a way to connect to who we really are and the divinity from which we all come. Namaste

Kim Nelson is a current member of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg 200 hour teacher training program.

Finding Peace in a Busy World

 I have just read the article “Busyness Plan” by Sally Kempton and completely related to her message on so many levels.  Ms. Kempton makes the point that we are often addicted to busyness in our “capitalist” society and frame of minds.  She offers insight into finding the spaciousness in the gap between time and timeless.  That perfectly blissful and peaceful place where you experience just “being”.  She goes on to explain that activity is fine and essential but our state of mind while engaged in an activity can be peaceful.  As in the story about the two monks, one scolds the other for sweeping instead of meditating.  The other’s reply is, “you should know that there is one inside who is not busy”. 

Accessing this is the key to bliss.  It reminded me of my life lately.

I have always valued busyness.  My family, culture and ego have always promoted and responded to busyness.  It is a state of being that was ingrained and learned through proud comments of, “oh, I’ve been so busy today” or “today I worked on this, this and this, made supper, took the kids to swimming and painted the bathroom”.  I have learned that being busy is a desirable, sought-after trait and way of being.  I have been conditioned with the praise and adulation that follows a statement of “I’ve been so busy…”  However, as I grew older and my children became more self-sufficient and eventually moved out on their own, I discovered I was burnt out emotionally, physically and spiritually.  I was a mom, worked full time, took university courses, managed my home, volunteered for everything, had my boys in as many activities as we could cram into a week and thrived on the busyness of it all. It wasn’t until I realized when life slowed down that my state of health was a mess.  I had anxiety, panic attacks, stomach problems, irritability,  jealousy, anger, illogical fears, unhappiness, illness and unbelievable exhaustion.  I was DONE! 

I had been living on a diet of caffeine, sugar and adrenaline.  My  adrenaline switch had no off button.  Out of desperation I began looking at myself, my patterns, habits, diet, and recognized a deep inner longing for peace, ease, relaxation and wholeness.  This process of discovery took me to naturopathic doctors, alternative healers, informal group therapy and study groups, psychics, card readers, past life regressions, traditional doctors, exercise routines, more self-help books then I can count and eventually yoga.  I felt such a strong calling to do yoga.  My body craved it.  As I began to practice at home to DVD lessons, my state of being began to alter.  Eventually this search for peace took me through a 2 year detox, a new way of eating, and accidently an experiment in which, out of desperation, I left my ego behind and found a new point of view I called “the observer”.  This brought me so much peace it was quite incredible the first time I “left my body” and viewed a stressful situation from this position of detachment. From this perspective I  had clarity and calmness.  I was rational and thoughtful. I was kinder, more patient, wiser and more in-tune with what was happening.  Essentially, my ego got out of the way and the “one inside me who is not busy” was allowed to be present.

Accessing this state of being is a constant learning curve.  I am more aware of the times I enter this state without effort.  These are the times I am totally engaged in an activity and lose all sense of time.  This is a blissful place to be.  The first time I experienced this sense of timelessness was in childbirth.  It is an incredible experience. A day could have passed, an hour, a minute I had no sense of time just “being”.  I longed for this experience to happen again but never achieved it until I began to practice yoga and learn more about the ego and detachment.  Since this time I  have experienced this state doing more mundane activities such as cleaning my house, writing, painting, doing yoga, working in the garden, and talking with a friend.  When time is irrelevant you know you have entered a place of peace.

I have dabbled with meditation but at this point I am not practicing it regularly.  I have good intentions of beginning this practice and more fully developing a yogic state of being.  Since I have been practicing yoga and taking the teacher training I have had many friends, colleagues and family comment on how calm I am.  How nice to hear after being tormented by the ego and filled with anxiety and exhaustion. 

I see the way I was living in others on a daily basis.  I wish I could sit them down and tell them to take a time-out, breath and leave their ego behind. But I know we all have to find our own way in our own time.  When the opportunity arises to discuss peacefulness I share my story and encourage friends and acquaintances to experiment with going to the place of the observer or “the one who is not busy”.  When accessed it is  pure bliss!  Now I can say with confidence I am a happier person and she’s always been there, lost in the gap.

My wish for all who read this is the opportunity to access their place of peace. 

Namaste, Elaine

Elaine K. is a current member of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg 200 hour teacher training program.

On Yoga

Then the  Yoga teacher training assignment  came forth and said.... Speak to us of Yoga.

And the student answered ,saying: Yoga is a freedom song,

 

But .....it is not freedom,It is a blossoming of ones self

But... it is not the fruit

It is a depth calling unto a height,

But.... it is not the deep nor the high

It is the confined taking  wing

But.... it is not a space encompassed

Yes,In very truth it is a freedom song

 

 The human  body knows it's yearnings,and its rightful need,and will not be decieved.

 And my  body is the harp of my soul,

 And it is mine to bring forth sweet music

  from it ,or confused sounds

 

I go  to my field and my garden

And have learned  that it is the joy of the bee to gather honey from the flowers

But it is also the  joy of the flowers to yield its honey to the bee

 

As a yoga student growing in her  practise, I am not unlike the flower and the bee--
Regards,

Laura Lysenko

Laura Lysenko is a current member of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg 200 hour teacher training program.

Yoga in Italy

Jan and I just returned back from leading a yoga trip in Italy.

The destination was an 800 year old farm house in the Tuscan Hills.

 23 people joined us in the journey, our ages ranged from early 40’s to early 80s. It was, as they say, the trip of a lifetime. The people, the places, every moment was amazing. 

Each person on the trip was touched by something different: The food, the wine, the flowers, the history, the art, the culture, the shopping.  There is so much to say. I could fill pages, but this is a yoga blog so that is where I will start and end.

The reason I am drawn to yoga is the journey. Every yoga pose and every meditation session is an opportunity to explore an inner landscape as vast as the outer world.

The reason Jan and I have started to offer yoga trips is to provide an opportunity to explore the outer world, with the added benefit of the yoga practice to focus and enhance the journey.

On our trip to Italy I was reminded how clearly the outer journey also enhances the inner. Experiencing the depth and beauty of the world around brought me into a balance of my own body mind and spirit held in the body mind and spirit of the world.

Each day the group came together for yoga at 6:30 am.  We met in an awesome room that was once a stable, but now a lovely yoga space.  While the transformation from stable to yoga room is relatively recent, the sense of time and history was palpable to us as we rested on the uneven floor boards. 

Donkeys and horses regularly stood at the window looking in. Perhaps they too have a sense of history and wondered what we were doing in their space. Or maybe they were drawn to the energy of communion and peace they felt emanate from the room. The morning yoga practice was an opportunity for our group to come together, to stretch, to strengthen and to prepare body and mind for the day ahead. Each evening the group came together again for a restful practice, an opportunity to give body, mind, and spirit, a chance to integrate the day’s events.

 

For me the most profound yoga was experienced in the in between hours, when we were off the mat.  Every day we all hopped into little vans and headed off to explore the spectacular Italian countryside on our way to yet another hill top Etruscan village.

 

The countryside was hilly, filled with the vivid greens of the various crops that includes olive groves and wine groves. Other green fields were dotted with red poppies, and beautiful yellow and purple flowers. The beauty of the landscape inspires me to source out my own inner beauty and offer it out, and to invite others to do the same.

Each village visited had its own magic. Quite possibly the magic came from a loving attention to detail demonstrated every where you looked. In the way the flowers hang from the balconies against ancient stone walls, beautiful artwork visible everywhere you turn, exquisitely fashioned  clothes, shoes and bags, or the enticing gelati, cheese, and wine displays.  

As someone who easily tires of details, Italy inspired me to begin to bring such caring appreciation to my own life- to slow down and patiently, lovingly attend to what is in front of me, for its own sake.

While the yoga practice at times emphasizes sense withdrawal,  and one reason is to help us attune to the subtleties that exist. Italy is a delight to the senses- an invitation to appreciate the subtle nuances along with the not so subtle!-Drink it all in! Taste! Feel! Breathe! Italy inspires us to live fully.

There is so much to absorb and experience, you cannot help but be fully in the moment and at the same time profoundly aware of an ancientness beyond words and a future is limitless.

This is yoga at its best.

 namaste
 Shauna

Looking at the World Upside Down

“Tell all the Truth, but tell it slant---”

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightening to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind--

Emily Dickinson        c. 1868

I love this poem by Emily Dickinson.  For me, she is saying that at some point in our lives, when we are ready and open, we will  be dazzled by the light of a right alignment with our world. A kind of getting right with the light.  Until we have capacity to comprehend and life experience to inform our views, we are best served by taking in information in gentle digestible bits.  Chunking it down.  Swallowing the elephant - one bite at a time.  Of course, life can throw curve balls, and the lessons are lived and learned at lightening speed.  Assuming one is not blinded by a direct hit of lightening, what can be meant by “the Truth’s superb surprize”? 

I have been taking classes at the Yoga Centre Winnipeg for the past four years.  Last year, I decided, it was time to take the plunge and enrolled in the Teacher Training Program.  Did I want to teach?  Perhaps.  Did I want to learn more about the path of yoga?  Absolutely.

I had retired from a fulfilling career in human resources.  Sure, I was trained to mediate, but could I meditate? I knew how to utilize personality preference systems such as MBTI but could I make sense of the Elements of Yoga (fire, air, earth, water, space) that the yogis favoured?   I wasn’t looking for a new job.  Facing facts - I was no spring chicken, as my mother would have phrased it.  I did not think I would or could build up to not so gentle Vinyasa or fire breathing Ashtanga classes.

I had felt very body conscious when I first started participating in beginner classes.  I did not get the concept of being on the mat, in my own space, that everyone was taking classes for their own reasons, relaxation, exercise, or socializing.  That people, generally, did not notice you, that they were so wrapped up in their own lives.  The studios were kept fairly dark.  After a few of months of beginner alignment and relaxation classes, I decided to “graduate” myself to a beginner flow class.  Before class, I ran into a former work colleague.  I mentioned to her how it was my first flow class and that I did not have a clue about how it would go and how ridiculous I might look trying, for the first time, to move fairly rapidly from pose to pose.  Her response spoke to her modesty and kindness: “when I am in class, I am so focussed on my own practice and that I rarely notice anyone or anything else in the studio”.  How pathetically egotistical I felt.  Of course, she was right.  She was all about being present in the yoga moment. 

Entering the studio for a yoga practice is about entering a special space that has been intentionally cordoned off from the mundane world, to invite you to bring your awareness into the moment, to still your mind.  Big Lesson: this is all about you (emphasis added).

Of course, the ego never lets up.  I wondered why it was that some people seem to move readily into what seemed to me to be complicated poses. I felt very frustrated that I could not kick up into head stand - or understand the euphemism of “float up” into the pose.  I felt my earthiness as I crumpled to the right in a spastic heap to the floor, my heels never making it up the wall. I was experiencing the inkling of the pose, but it was experienced in a truly “slant” manner, to paraphrase Dickinson, and pun intended.

One day, half a year ago, I made it up the wall and felt my heels contact the wall as I fully inverted.  Success.  The ego was satisfied.  Even for only 5 seconds. I notice when I think that it is force that will carry me up the wall, I do not succeed.  When I surrender to the breath, align my limbs, I am up the wall almost effortlessly.  Some days, I “float” up, and other days, I require a few tries before inverting.  I still ruminate on this pose - the ego knows no bounds!

I think it is safe to say that, not unlike the child in Dickinson’s poem, I am being dazzled gradually by the brilliance of the yoga practise and the surprizes/gifts of the teachings I am honoured to receive. 

Nancy

Nancy M. is a current member of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg 200 hour teacher training program.

Teaching my first Spring Sadhana

Last year while in teacher training, I saw the posting advertising Spring Sadhana. I was devastated that I could not attend because I live far away, so I instantly thought of teaching one myself.  I already had been teaching for a few years, I offered it to my class and they loved the idea. Then I realized that it had to be at 5:30 am to fit into their morning schedules, so I agreed and prepared to teach for 30 days straight.  I knew it would be an amazing experience and felt lucky for the opportunity.  The first day I was shocked that people were early and excited; it seemed much too dark and cold in April at that hour.  I made some tea, warmed up and taught a beginner level class.  Everyday I would make a new class for the next day, had to look up new ideas and poses. I learned so much.  As the days went on the classes lifted to another level. I taught everything I could and we were all stronger.  The students enjoyed meditation before and after class and we all felt closely connected, in love with the morning.  By the end I was so tired; I wished I had taken the weekends off to sleep in.  This year I am teaching another Spring Sadhana but in May and at 6:30 am so I can come home and start my day.  Not all the students can make it at this later time, but I know I need to take care of my body and mind. I'm also taking weekends off!  It will be 20 days instead of 30 days but it will still be wonderful and transformational.  I will do yoga, come home, play with my flowers, wake up my children, eat breakfast outside maybe, and then walk the children to school. It’s a beautiful morning. 

Lorissa Kowalchuk  

Lorissa Kowalchuk is a current member of the Yoga Centre Winnipeg 200 hour teacher training program.