Yogi Victor May 31, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Yoga.8 comments
This is a short clip from "King of the Hill" about Hank being introduced to Yoga. The instructor, Yogi Victor, is the voice of Johnny Depp. I was laughing my head off last night when yogamum and I watched this on our tivo.
While I'm nowhere as bad as Hank and none of the instructors I've had came remotely close to Yogi Victor, it does remind me a little about my introduction to Yoga and my own misconceptions on the subject.
Enjoy…
A full glass May 19, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Thoughts.1 comment so far
I’m sure you have a heard the expressions “a glass half full” and “a glass half empty” and how they denote widely different outlooks. When the glass is precisely filled half way, some will optimistically look at it as half-full while others will pessimistically observe it as half-empty. These are lovely metaphors.
Recently my wife gave me a half-full T-Shirt that I love to wear because it reminds us to keep a positive outlook about life. But when you think about it, even this optimistic approach is passive. It is about outlook, but not about action.
I like the full glass metaphor much better. I first came across this story while reading a photography magazine where a photographer was recounting a story from his mother. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the photographer or the magazine, but the story definitely stuck with me.
You see, everyday, this mother would ask herself if her glass was full — all the way full of the things that gave her happiness and inspiration. If not, then she proceeded to do the things that filled her glass. It is especially powerful to me, because instead of just passively observing that the glass is half-empty or even half-full, you actively pursue those things that fill it up.
This past week, my glass has not been half anything. Guess what I’ve not been doing: yoga, spending sufficient time outdoors, taking my camera out and about. Those are some things that fill my glass. Sure, I’ve tried to take a half-full approach and be optimistic about my life and my wonderful family, but it has been a passive approach.
So grab paper and pencil and write down what truly fills your life, and every day, remember to fill your glass!
A flowing practice with a quiet mind – the first time May 17, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Ashtanga, Stillness.add a comment
Most changes in Yoga for me have happened very gradually. I think slower than molasses. I can notice when something is different than it had been before, but I can never point to when the change happened or when a particular shift first occurred. There has been one exception: the first time that I had one of “those” practices where everything just clicked and you sort of “get it.” How is that for a worthless descriptive statement 
At any rate, it was a guided primary series Ashtanga practice in a nicely heated room, lights not too bright. Yogamum was also practicing with us and she later told me than she was not having a good practice and instead focused her “energy” in wishing that I would have a good one. Isn’t that sweet? I would have just been pissed.
I’m not sure how much her thoughts contributed, but in that practice everything for sure clicked for me. I was breathing slow and almost effortlessly, I was sweating like crazy, I was working very hard, but somehow I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was just listening to our instructor count and guide us through on to the next pose.
I was definitely exerting myself physically; there is no question about it. This wasn’t easy by any means, but everything felt a little different, almost detached. I had only experienced that feeling of inner peace and calmness once before when doing a silent seated meditation during my first yoga workshop. But this time I wasn’t sitting still, I was flowing, I was moving. It was just amazing.
The practice wasn’t perfect by any means. Heck, I was still the stiff white man in the room, probably the worst practitioner there by far. But it didn’t matter. I was happy, and I wasn’t jealous of anybody’s perfect poses. I wasn’t really even thinking positive thoughts, like thinking that my warrior that day was very good. These were isolated thoughts that I would observe and just as quickly let them go, and get back to my flow.
It was then that I knew what phrases like moving into stillness or meditation through movement really meant. The best part of the whole thing is that I had never dreamed that I would get to experience that without years and years of practice. Granted, it took quite a long time for me to experience it again, but it didn’t matter to me.
It was possible. That is all I cared about…
40 Pounds Later May 15, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Changes.add a comment
Doing yoga, exercising at the gym, or going for a jog are all activities that are very different for me today than they were three years ago.
Let's face it, as an adult I wasn't the type that would exercise for fun. You may even remember that I started exercising to lose weight. At first I was also doing yoga as a complement to that goal.
When I had lost forty pounds from my highest weight, I looked at the BMI tables and said to myself, ok, twenty more pounds to go to be in the healthy range. But work demands started to get in the way and I quickly rationalized that I wasn’t looking fat any more and I could slow it down. My parents even offered their unsolicited advice: “You look good; you can now just maintain your weight.”
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t have anything against weight management per se. I also cannot say that I’m free of weight issues. But I was focusing on the wrong thing for sure.
I slowed down, and over time I realized that I missed exercising. I just wasn’t feeling as well as I used to, even though my weight had stayed roughly the same.
So I got back into it, and today I don’t have any specific weight goal. I know I’m getting fitter, I know that even though my weight is declining much more slowly, my percentage of body fat is decreasing. Far more importantly, I feel better in so many ways and yoga has been a key element. Isn’t that the whole point?
Believe or not, my parents who are very dear to my heart, just don’t get it. They think — and I quote — that “I’m taking this exercising thing way too seriously” and possibly that Yogamum is brainwashing me with all this yoga mumbo jumbo.
So I breathe deeply, just breathe …
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.
and breathe, just breathe
woah breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe.
ANNA NALICK — Breathe (2AM)
Resentment May 12, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Ashtanga.2 comments
A few years ago, when my wife was doing yoga and I wasn’t, I went through a phase where I was jealous of her practice. (Check out my five stages of spousal Ashtanga post).
Yup, you heard me right. I was resentful that it seemed that Ashtanga was higher in her priorities than I was and unfortunately for her, I was a total jerk about it.
I didn’t get yoga, or Ashtanga for that matter. I would get really petty and nasty with her whenever she would tell me she was going to yoga during a weekend day. I would point out that my workouts, unlike her yoga, were not interfering with our family life. My worst reaction was when she went to her first weekend workshop out of town.
It all seems so silly now, because I know better. But humans tend to fear the unknown. It is a self-preservation monkey-thing that is hard to get rid of. If you think of yoga purely as a physical thing, then it is hard for any spouse to understand why someone is so hooked, especially if your spouse was not the athletic type to begin with. You have no precedent in your relationship for that.
Not only that, but joining your partner in the activity and trying Ashtanga to see if you suddenly get it, doesn’t work either. Did you get the intangibles of the Ashtanga practice from the first few times you attended? Nope, it is very gradual and it takes time.
Nonetheless, at some point I began to sense a certain peace in her from the practice. I realized that she was getting something more out of yoga than just exercise. Not only that, but that inner peace or clear mind, had a positive effect on our family and our relationship as a couple. While I didn’t yet understand why it was happening, I accepted that it was very beneficial and I began to feel happy for her.
My advice to any ashtangi, or spouse, who may find themselves in this scenario is patience, patience, patience.
Luckily for me, my wife has always been wonderful and a very special soul (nauseated sounds coming from the readers of this blog).
Anugurihiitosumi Yogamum ! That is Sanskrit for thanks
Five stages of spousal Ashtanga May 10, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Ashtanga.1 comment so far
A side note to spouses, partners or very close friends of ashtangis out there. When that special person in your life gets hooked on Ashtanga yoga, you may experience the following five stages (B.R.A.T.A):
- Bewilderment — amused at the other person trying it. Just another fad?
- Resentment — the time spent doing yoga is interfering with our relationship.
- Acceptance — ok, I don’t get it why you spend so much time on this, but it does seem to make you happier and I think I like the happier you.
- Testing — what the heck, I’ll give it a try.
- Addiction — when is the next workshop?
As a spouse of someone who got hooked on Ashtanga way before I did, I have lived through all these stages. There may be more stages to this process. But frankly it doesn’t matter to me, I’m just very happy that we are now both ashtanga addicts.
Namaste.
My first Yoga workshop May 8, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Ashtanga, Background.add a comment
In September of 2005, I went to my first weekend Yoga workshop.
I had been attending classes with a different teacher than the one I had started with. This teacher taught the workshop with the assistance of her husband who in the past had also been into martial arts. They were both also into silent sitting meditation. All of these factors made the weekend highly serendipitous for me.
I liked this teacher a lot. Something about her just clicked with me. She had studied directly with Guruji and was committed to teaching "real" Ashtanga. The allure of an incredibly fit martial arts guy speaking so highly of the Ashtanga Yoga practice also seduced me. He was so incredibly more fit than I was and yet he spoke of Ashtanga in such a way that I thought to myself I had to give this more than a try. I don’t know why a martial arts guy would have more weight with me at the time than the example of Guruji or Sharath, but at the time it did. I was just incredibly lucky that everything coincided on that weekend the way it did.
This workshop was the first time that I attempted the entire primary series of Ashtanga from beginning to end and it was most definitely a challenge. Also during the workshop I was introduced to silent meditation for the first time in my life. It was very soothing, yet powerful, and even a little scary. I remember when I finished the first full guided Ashtanga practice, turning around to my wife and looking at her at awe: holy s**t, you do this four to six times a week? Suddenly, I was looking at her in a whole new light.
I hadn’t fallen in love with Ashtanga and I hadn’t been hooked yet. But the workshop had certainly left a powerful seed of curiosity in me about the practice and I intended to pursue it further to see where it would take me.
Sure sweetie… May 4, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Ashtanga, Background.4 comments
I should have known that testosterone was running high in my system with all the workouts and cardio that I had been doing for several months in the first half of 2004. After all, why on earth would I agree to go to a yoga class?
I thought yoga would be a relaxing, new agey thing. I didn’t know there were different kinds of yoga either. All I really knew was that my wife (yogamum) had been doing this yoga thing and she was getting fitter and more importantly she seemed to be in a better mood.
Besides, if she could do it, anybody could. Ego, ego, ego… So, I went to several beginning yoga classes taught by a local Ashtanga teacher.
Hey, I discovered I had new muscles in my body. No, not the big fat burning muscles from my macho workouts, little muscles here, there, everywhere in my body. I could feel them now, and they were tired, sore and, I think, pissed because they had to really work for the first time in their lives.
Wait a minute, this was harder than I had envisioned. I thought this yoga thing was supposed to be relaxing. All the other yogis in the room smiled at me. Nothing sweeter than to see a big, stiff, white male, who thinks he is so hot because he now works out, humbled by the experience of Ashtanga Yoga.
And do you know what is really funny?
We weren’t even doing the entire primary series yet.
Say what? May 3, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Background.add a comment
So I had started working out seriously in 2004. I probably exercise harder nowadays, but back then it wasn’t necessarily “fun.” You get the picture.
To assist me in sticking with the exercise program, I negotiated a good deal with a local gym for a set of trainer sessions over several months and prepaid it. It was the single biggest investment in preventative health that I had ever done. It was also the best trick I could recommend to anybody seriously thinking about losing weight: force yourself to commit to it somehow.
My first appointment with the trainer started with a physical assessment. What a wake up call! I was in the poor category for a male of my age in pretty much every single test (push-ups, flexibility, stamina, etc.) Back then; I had a BMI of 34. BMI is a body mass index that correlates weight to height based on a set of tables for men and women. Clinically anything above 30 is obese. Hee hee, and I used to think that all I had was a pot-belly.
But the real shocker came on the next session. The first words out of my trainer’s mouth were “You need to gain weight before you can lose it.” Say what? I paid all this money to lose weight, what do you mean I still need to gain more? Basically, he explained to me, muscle burns calories and I needed more muscle. Which is a trainer’s euphemism for you are a fat weakling. I can say that now and laugh about it, but it wasn’t funny then.
At any rate, every week, he would ramp up the duration of my cardio and the weight of my strength training. So just as I would get “comfortable” with a routine, he would make it more difficult.
I was intense about the whole thing. I was tracking, measuring my progress, pushing myself and trusting my trainer. I did cardio six days a week and worked out with him twice a week. I gained some weight at the beginning and very quickly started losing it and felt really good with my progress.
A few months later, my wife who had been doing yoga for about two years then, suggested to me that I should try yoga. I thought it would be a nice complement, a good way to relax after one my hard workouts, har, har…
Sure, sweetie, I’ll give yoga a try!
Overweight May 2, 2006
Posted by yogaspell in Background.2 comments
My weight had reached an all time high during the summer of 2003. Several months later, for my New Year's resolution, I decided it was time to do something about my appearance. Kind of love those two statements. They encapsulate so much of what was wrong with my life back then.
As if my weight just happened to go up and up on its own without any involvement on my part, and then I was worried about my looks? Not my health?
It doesn’t really matter if I got into exercising for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t matter if the overachiever A-type personality in me drove me to work towards a vain goal: a better appearance. What matters is that I had made a decision to stick to an exercise plan, together with a diet, with the clear expectation that it wouldn’t be easy and it wouldn’t be quick.
Luckily for me, in January of 2004, for the first time in my life, I started doing cardio regularly and working out with a trainer and I stuck with it long enough to experience a transformation.
Changes were in store for me, I just didn’t know it…
