Mindful Dog Yoga Challenge

Ok,  so my travels have proved challenging and my yoga practice has suffered.  But Bill has been talking about extending the challenge to make up for the missed class opportunities and the disruption of the momentum, so I’m excited that I may still be able to make my goal!

I know some of us have fizzled a bit, but I’m here to act as the rallying cry.  Let’s get out there and keep doing our yoga (how’s that for an imperative?)  I know Ray has been kicking heiney and has already exceeded his monthly goal!  Perhaps others are in the same boat? 

Yesterday I was multi-tasking.  Talking to Bill on the phone to see how he was feeling, eating a belated lunch, and driving to an appointment in the South End.  Every other sentence was directed at the jerks all around me.  A cop cut me off, a bus blocked all the traffic.  Then I started complaining about how my webmail had been so slow I couldn’t send an important email and how my mom is sick and I am exhausted and bleh bleh bleh.  (I am aware that this is not a nice way to behave when talking to my very uncomfortable, trying to heal friend, but he put up with it…)  At some point he interrupted me and said,

“You know what you sound like?”

“Like I need the world to stop being so difficult?” I replied.

“You sound like someone who hasn’t done yoga in a while.”

And with that one statement, he had hit the nail on the head.  I was a mess of anxiety.  My body was stresseed, my mind was overburdened, I hadn’t breathed a truly deep breath in days.  When I got home I did a short little practice, and I immediately felt better.  I’m always surprised that even when I’m in the worst mood, even when I’m feeling so frustrated or sad or edgy that I cry straight through my practice, I ALWAYS feel better afterwards.  That 45 minute practice reminded me why I wanted to do this challenge in the first place.  And even though it didn’t even count towards my challenge total, it helped me to recommit to the challenge, and to all of you, my challenge-mates.

Are any of you feeling similarly?  Might your yoga be slipping a bit?  Might your tougher days be increasing as yoga practice decreases?  Let’s get our energy back up.  It would make Bill so happy to see us moving forward and staying committed and energized, but more importantly, it would be so so good for us!  So who’s with me?!

All love,

Jess

PS - Jess Ableson is subbing for Bill’s 9 and noon classes this Sunday and I’ll be at the 9:00 am Forrest class.  Come join me and we’ll make it a party! 

I’m having a hard time coming up with things to talk about here so I apologize for the lack of posts. I did drop by the studio to do the books and write paychecks and it was nice to see that classes have still been rocking. Thanks for the support!

I wanted to check in and see how things were going with the yoga challenge. i haven’t seen anyone blog about their progress recently and I hope that doesn’t mean you’ve all given up on it. So, please heck in here and tell us what is going on. Even if things are going badly, let’s share and see what we can come up with. The idea behind this whole process is that community is bigger than any single person’s willpower. Let’s use this community to keep inspiring each other and keep this challenge going even if we are short of our goals.

As  for my progress, I was hoping to be doing simple, gentle yoga practices but I am still unable to do much other than lie in bed. despite my lack of infection and fever, my pain is pretty intense right now and I’m trying to save my limited pain medication for nights when I need to sleep. i did bring home my copy of Light on Yoga and am going to investigate the poses that Iyengar prescribes for diseases of the kidkeys. I’m still hoping to be doing some basic practices before the weekend but that’s still very up in the air.

So, how is it going for you? Let’s see if we can get back to using this community to help each other.

I had a rough weekend. My kidney became infected and I wasn’t given antibiotics on my first trip to the ER. After dealing with two days of no energy and a high fever, I returned to the ER on Sunday night and got my antibiotics. The interesting thing is that I felt better as soon as I started talking to the caregivers. I think just the act of being cared for in a caring way speeds up the speeding process so much. I must thank the people at Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Sunday night. So often, emergency rooms can be cold, uncaring places that just make you feel more miserable. It was great to see healers who operated with such a sense of caring and compassion. I know it is so easy to get caught up in our own stuff and maybe not give someone in need the little extra care that may make their day. I need to remember this in my future.

I’m hoping to get myself into some easy practice over the next two days. I’ve also decided to extend the yoga challenge for an extra week to make up for cancelled classes. I’ll give some more details on this over the next couple days. Now I am still pretty heavily drugged and can’t think too deeply about anything. It also looks like most of this week’s classes will get covered. I’ll be posting  a substitute list later tonight and still hope to find subs for the few remaining classes. Thanks to everyone for their patience and kind thoughts through this rough time.

This has been a rough day for me. It’s amazing how quickly we can go from being on top of the world to feeling like the world is beating us down. Just a few days ago, I was on a roll. I was thrilled about the studio and the beautiful energy you were all ading to the space. I was excited about the changes I’d seen and heard about in so many of you. Plus I was extremely happy with myself for diving into this challenge and practicing self-care on many levels.

Now as I find myself having to cancel many classes, I am beating myself up for not being able to deliver what I have promised with the studio. I’m also feeling just how fragile our lives are. All it takes is one little setback to move from the upbeat side of life to a downward spiral. It’s so easy to feel victimized and I am trying to fight that feeling. It’s not easy and I am hoping a good night’s sleep will help. I did think of this old Buddhist story which is interesting to ponder when you are feeling victimized.

Once, there was an old man who lived in a village.  He had lived a good life, and had been very loyal to the chief.  In appreciation for all he had contributed to the life of the village, one day the chief of the village gives him a horse, a prize stallion.  The neighbors gather round: “Such good news!” they proclaim.  The old man replies: Good news, bad news—who can say?

The next day, the prize horse runs away.  The neighbors gather round: “Such bad news!” they proclaim.  The old man replies: Good news, bad news—who can say?

The next day, the horse returns, bringing with him a whole herd of beautiful, wild horses.  The neighbors gather round: “Such good news!” they proclaim.  The old man replies: Good news, bad news—who can say?

The next day, when the old man’s young son tries to tame the biggest and most beautiful wild horse, he is thrown and breaks his leg in several places.  The neighbors gather round: “Such bad news!” they proclaim.  The old man replies: Good news, bad news—who can say?

The next day, the army of a powerful War Lord marches through the village, pressing all the young men in the village into service.  They march off to a bloody battle from which none are expected to return.  Only the young son of the old man is spared, because of his broken leg.   The neighbors gather round: “Such good news!” they proclaim.  The old man replies: Good news, bad news—who can say?

Although I’m still unable to find the good news side of a kidney stone, I know that staying in the victim mode is not going to help me so I will do may best to keep an open mind and parctice self-care. For me tonight, just noticing when I bring on these negative, victimization thoughts and dropping them even briefly is my practice.

What a turn of events I had today. I was teaching my morning class and about 30 minutes in felt horrible pain in my left side. I managed to get through an abbreviated class but after that I was doubled over in pain and headed for the ER. To make a long story short, I have a kidney stone and will be out of action until the damn thing exits my body. So for now at least, I have replaced my yoga practice with prescription narcotics. Eve with the heavy duty pain drugs, I’m still in a lot of pain and am currently figuring out how I can get some sleep.

I’d like to say that I have a great piece of spiritual advice that came out of today but mostly I’m in a bad mood and feeling sorry for myself. Tomorrow, I get back to reality and try to track down subs for the classes I’l be unable to teach for the next few days. I’m sure I will have some interesting thoughts on self-care after this is all over but for now I’m hunkered down trying to get through the night. Maybe that is the ultimate in self-care: just knowing when it’s time to give yourself 100% of the attention and take it day by day.

So foe now, I have no thoughts of goals or of what I will do specifically tomorrow. It’s time to listen to my body and give it what it asks for. That after all is the essence of yoga.

If you are a big baseball fan you probably know about something called “dead arm syndrome” that most pitchers experience as they are preparing for the season. This is a point after they ramp up their training and start pitching where the arm just tires and they need a little break. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s not an injury. In fact it is something many pitchers count on as a sign that their training is progressing. It is only after they have worked through this period of their spring that they know they are ready for the season.

Well, today I work up with a serious case of “dead leg syndrome.” I’m in that mode where just lifting my legs makes my quads burn and my overall flexibility through many parts of my lower body is down by about half. Thankfully, having been through several intense teacher trainings and week-long yoga retreats, I am used to this feeling.  This is  a period in my practice where I could easily be injured but it is also a place where my practice could easily be pushed up a notch. The key is to carefully guide myself through this period. Today I did a long but relatively passive yin practice (Bryan Kest’s Long Slow Deep CDs). Even this practice was a major mental challenge as in many poses I am nowhere near as deep as I would normally be.

These periods remind me of why we call this a practice. Our bodies, minds and emotions are in constant flux so we will find that our practice ebbs and flows in big ways from day to day.  The process of mastering any task is so dependent upon these natural rhythms and accepting the plateaus and dips in our practice as much as we love the days where we make major breakthroughs. If you are interestd in a great discussion on this philosophy, check out Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment by George Leonard. This was a required reading for Ana Forrest teacher training and it’s one I constantly draw from as my practice and life go through their normal up and down cycles.

I’m sure some of you are experiencing similar things as you ramp up your practice to new heights. Feel free to share your thoughts on this and anything else. We are nearing the halfway point of our challenge and this is often the point that motivation can lag so please ask for and receive the support you ned out here.

I am still on target. I have 13 classes in 12 days and believe me that it wouldn’t be possible without your support. Just knowing that I have to update you on my progress each day makes me much more likely to practice on those difficult days. Remember that you can tap into this support at the studio or through this blog so please take advantage of these resources as we head to the end of our first half.

Early on in the challenge I wrote about how doing a challenge like this started off as hard work but would soon transition into a practice. I feel that shift occurring for me as I get deep into my second week. In many ways the shift isn’t in my asana practice but in other aspects of my life. I am just so much more in tune to how I react to many situations. For instance, I often eat because of stress or to just numb me out from difficult situations. These days I am finding that I notice immediately when I eat something that makes my energy dip. Sadly, I find that nearly everything I am eating on a regular basis does this to me. I guess that tells me I need some more dietary changes. I will be making these but I’m trying to not place so many new rules in my life that I can’t keep up. For now, I will let my diet evolve based upon how I feel and maybe add some more constraints in April.

I have been reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan and highly recommend it. Reading about eating can be confusing as it seems every year brings us a new fad (low-fat, low-carb, etc.). Michael Pollan takes a more common sense approach which can be summarized in these three rules: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” The key statement here is “eat food.” Pollan talks a lot about how to differentiate “food” from all that other processed stuff that takes up so much space in our grocery stores and kitchens.

I think Pollan’s books (including The Omnivore’s Dilemma) are going to have a major impact in the way American’s eat over the next 20 years. Returning to our roots and rejecting the processed industrial food will be our next revolution. It has to be. It just makes so much sense. I personally won’t miss food pyramids and diet of the month crazes. I will miss some of my favorite processed foods though (but not the way they make me feel).

I got kind of off track there but the point is that practicing all of this self-care  on one level is making me think about how I live my life on so many levels. Things start to come together in interesting ways. I guess that is why the word “yoga” translate to “union.” We start to pull all the pieces together the more we dedicate ourselves to a practice.

As planned today, I did a vinyasa class with Emily at Sadhana Studio in the South End. It was a nice practice and I felt so good afterwards that I walked home to Somerville from the South End. It’s nice to feel my energy building to the point where a fairly walk seems natural and right. This challenge has been amazing for me so far. I hope others are connecting in similar ways. I now have an extra class under my belt for this week so I’m hoping to take an off day on Friday and go hiking. Just that thought gives me more incentive to get my practice in on Wednesday and Thursday.

What a weird day for my practice. I discovered that I have a perfect gap in my schedule between my Mindful Dog class and a class I teach at a Cambridge gym so I decided to squeeze a practice in that gap. I did my own Forrest practice and had a strong day. I actually wished that I had more time for the practice as I was really into what I was doing. This is the most comfortable I have been with my self-practice in months so this challenge seems to be doing the trick!

I want to take a day off this week, so I decided to take the evening class at O2 Yoga once again. Last week, I just loved this class but for whatever reason, I was annoyed for the whole practice tonight. Everything bugged me- from the sequencing, to the lighting to the length of Savasana. It’s weird- usually when I have this feeling, I know what is coming up inside me. This time it just seemed to come out of nowhere. It’s an hour after the practice and I’m still a little bit on edge. Maybe I just conenct so well to the Forrest  sequencing that I am able to leave my emotions on the mat there. Or maybe I’m just in a strange state and that stuff needed to come up for whatever reason.

Anyway, I have had a good week so far. I now have four practices in five days so I have a little breathing room this week. Hopefully that will get me through the week without a Friday night freak-out like last week.

My eating is going well. I still make bad choices here and there  but feel better with no sugar or caffeine. My meditation practice is still a bit of an afterthought. I really need to find a way to bring that part of my practice front and center.

Today was one of my better days despite a rough start. I managed to forget it was the tart of daylight saving time and when I woke up I had negative time to get myself to the studio for my morning class. I manged to get there about 15 minutes before class but I like to be a little more settled before I teach so I wasn’t exactly in my best state of mind before this class. This is generally not a big deal once class gets going and it wasn’t today either. Still after I finished this class and the noon class, I was desperately in need of my practice. Rather than stall or skip practice as i have so often done, I jumped right on the mat and did my practice. Even in just my ninth day of this practice, I can feel a new strength in my legs and an openness around my hips and core. I feel like I am finally bringing a lot of the principles I have been teaching over the past few months into my practice in a significant way. I’m starting to crave my daily practice again which is a big shift for me. I’m hoping this is a shift that will stick. Moving my practice from something I make myself do to something I crave and desire would be a beautiful shift for me.

By the time I got to my 4:00 pm class, I was in great spirits and I think the class reflected that. I feel like all of us - students and teacher alike were on the same page and the group energy made the practice just fly by. I also had a solid meditation session with the class. My meditation practice still doesn’t feel like a habit but I’ve only missed one day (last night) during the challenge. I really need to get that practice shifted to the morning. I find it so much harder to meditate at other times of the day. My dietary intentions are still going strong. I’m now and full 15 days with no sugar or caffeine. I must say that I am pretty proud of myself for keeping on this goal.

Is anyone else seeing any breakthroughs or running into any particular issues as we move into week two?

In a lot of ways, this is the hardest day so far. It was very satisfying to complete the first week of the challenge on schedule. It was another to realize that I have to do it all again this week (and the next and the next)! A couple times last week, I thought I may have been better off skipping a day because of circumstances. I didn’t do that and now I am glad as I learned a lot about myself by doing my practice even under difficult circumstances. Now I am trying to figure out how to use this new knowledge to make this week go more smoothly.

I found that on the days I had a definitely plan to practice at a certain time and place, I did it. On those days that I left myself wiggle room, I managed to have to work the hardest to get things done. Given this, it seems like a great idea to plan each practice out with no room for error but I still have this nagging feeling that my practice should be more fluid. I’m still not sure what the middle ground is for me. I know I used to have my best practice weeks when I consistently practiced at the same time each day. Given my current schedule, that is not really possible.

I think I’m going to do the same thing as last week. I will make a schedule for myself day by day and see if the completion of last week’s work makes it easier to stick to it. I will put my schedule in a comment again. If this public goal setting helps anyone else, feel free to join me in this endeavor.

As for today’s practice, I did another MP3 class from Alive Yoga. I have been having difficulty getting myself to practice on my own but today I may have the inspiration I need to move on to self practice. The class I downloaded annoyed me from start to finish. It was a vinyasa class with a way too chatty teacher with pretty insane sequencing. I felt like I was doing aerobics. Tomorrow is the day I do my own practice! My eating intentions are stillon target but I have not meditated yet today. I really need to get my meditation practice shifted regularly to the morning.