YogaNotes

Whew!  I made it through our first intensive yoga training weekend--2 hrs. Friday, 7 hrs. Sat, 3 hrs Sun for a total of 12 hours.  But it wasn't all asanas--quite a bit of lecture, including 2 hours of anatomy; a discussion of the origins of yoga.  Also meditation and breathing.  I felt good about being able to keep up; although I feel more tired 2 days later than I did yesterday.  And I have a yoga class this morning.  I considered skipping it to rest a bit, but probably won't.  I'll tell myself to take it easy during the class, but I'm usually not able to do that--feels like cheating.

I'm starting to read Desikachar's book, The Heart of Yoga.  Makes me wish I had started reading yoga texts earlier.  But his description of how "there are many ways of practicing yoga, and gradually the interest in one path will lead to another" (p. 7) is really what's happened to me.  He cites doing asanas (the physical poses), studying yoga texts, meditating, and feeling the breath (pranayama) as the four paths.  So if you look at me, I started doing yoga poses after ordering a book of yoga poses (from an ad in a Sunday magazine).  I wish I had kept the book, but I think I threw it out in one of my moves.  Then in the early (or mid?) '80s, I took the transcendental meditation (TM) training--back when it cost a few hundred dollars.  I thought about doing a refresher course a couple of years ago, only to find to my horror that the cost had gone way up--over a thousand dollars, I believe.  And all I remember from my TM training is my mantra.  I literally remember nothing else.  Except that I went to some fraying but elegant brownstone with pink interior walls and lots of candles for the sessions.  Because I've studied voice, I'm more aware of breathing techniques than a lot of people might be.  And some of the breathing exercises I'm currently doing to try to strengthen my voice (which wears out quickly) are very similar to those we do in yoga.  In fact, one exercise we did this weekend--where one inhales in three phases--lower, middle and upper segments of the breathing apparatus--was exactly like one I'm currently doing.  The main difference is that in yoga, we breathe through the nostrils; in singing one breathes through the mouth.  I got back into "yoga practice" (the asanas, or poses, that some people may think constitutes the whole of yoga) after we moved within walking distance of a yoga studio 8 years ago.

And now I'm beginning to read yoga texts as part of the teacher training/in-depth yoga study program.  So Desikachar's words about interest in one path leading to another ring true to me.

And the reasons why I pursued each path differed--but even there I see a confluence of interests and motivation.  I think I was initially attracted to the yoga poses because I'm naturally limber--very limber back--and probably thought I could do them.  (I was one of those kids who could touch her toes to her nose with no trouble.  That and my perfect pitch were my claims to fame as a child.)   And I struggled with weight (binge eating disorder) into my early 30s, and I used some yoga poses from the book as part of my exercise routine.

I just looked this up.  I'm not positive, but pretty sure, the yogini was Lilias Folan--back when she had a long braid.  She had a PBS yoga program in the '70s (Lilias Yoga and You), which I watched occasionally.  i see she's still around (no more braid!) and now has a book entitled Lilias:  Yoga Gets Better with Age.

But I digress...so I used a few yoga poses as part of my exercise plan.  I sought out the meditation in an attempt to calm myself and cope with depression.  Back then as now, I had trouble meditating for even 20 minutes (let alone 20 minutes twice a day, which is what they taught us in TM--so I learned something else!).  I'd try to meditate after I got home from work, and my cat would come in and bother me.  Fast foward to today, when I'm trying once again to sustain a meditative practice.  It seems like such a chore--I have to meditate; I haven't meditated yet...I don't feel that way about the asanas or the breathing or the reading;.  I think it's because my mind doesn't quiet down--it speeds up when I meditate.  So I think I almost dread the 20 minutes--it can seem like an excruciatingly long time.

Like now--I'm supposed to meditate around this time of day (that's my plan, anyway), but I turned to the blog/diary because I hadn't written in a few days.  It's 8:11am and I still haven't taken a shower and I have a yoga class at 10 and I want to get coffee before that...maybe I'll meditate this afternoon..but I also need to practice my vocal exercises before my son gets home (he doesn't like to listen to it, and I don't like having people around while I'm practicing), and I don't know how late he will stay at school...See how I approach meditation?  The less worn path of yoga...

As with many women my age, I did aerobics when I was a yuppie (remember that term?).  I kept it up until I got married, at which time my husband and I both gave up our gym memberships.  Fast forward to 8 years ago, when we moved about a mile from our previous house--to a newly built home.  New neighborhood is closer to commercial strip which includes a yoga studio, Sun and Moon Yoga.  Prompted my to think again about "doing yoga"--the "physical level" as Desikachar calls it.  At that point I had just turned 50 and thinking more about how to maintain some semblance of the flexibility that I took for granted when I was younger.  I could no longer touch my toes to my nose--not even close.  But on the other hand I  rarely get lower back pain.  So yoga seemed like a good practice for an aging flexible-but-not-as-flexible-as-before boomer.  And I could walk to the studio!  Having to get into a car to go exercise is a huge barrier to me, after working all day.

The breathing comes more easily since I have the foundation (although not a very firm one) from singing.  That nearly lifelong struggle (singing) is another story...  But I'm hoping that the pranayamas will help with my effort to expand my breathing capacity and control my breathing--which in turn will, I hope, help my singing.

So the divergent paths and interests are beginning to coalesce; the readings will add depth and appeal to the lifelong learner in me.  I'm one of those people who never really wanted to have to worry about making money--when I was in college I said if I had the resources, I would spend my life traveling and learning.  Luckily, I had a job that allowed me to do those things and get paid.  So now, post job, I'm creating my own program--just haven't figured out how to get paid...