Category Archives: Yoga

Silver City Yoga

Posted on by

Lotus Center

Silver City has a new yoga studio and it’s so pretty! This city deserves a quality yoga studio and I’m so pleased it’s finally happened.

Lotus Center

I took the Align and Refine Vinyasa class with Melissa and we worked through some complicated poses like Eagle and Upward Bow by starting with less complicated stuff and transitioning into the complications. This kind of work is incredibly helpful for me as a relatively unpracticed yoga practitioner because I rarely know what I’m doing. In any class. Ever. But Melissa broke down the complicated poses into components so we could work on our alignment in the simpler poses and when we transitioned into the full poses, they made so much more sense.

My yoga lesson of the day: How you get somewhere is as important as where you go.

Funny how all my recent yoga lessons are about slowing down and paying attention to the particulars, my intent, my breath, the method in which I do things… This particular lesson has a much wider application than just yoga. It’s like that saying “how you do anything is how you do everything.” The How matters. Deeply. Relationships, jobs, politics, yoga poses… they’re all built on small uncomplicated transitional choices and if the choices aren’t solid, the end result falls apart too.

Focus and going back to the basics, right? Good practices for yoga and for life.

If you’re in Silver City, visit the Lotus Center. The interior is a gorgeously appointed oasis of calm and beauty fully stocked with mats, blocks, straps, scented eye pillows and anything else students might want or need. There are no additional fees for equipment. It all comes with the cost of the class, which makes it so easy to stop in. There are yoga classes every day of the week as well as meditation, qigong, tai chi and even some Buddhism basics. Lots of options, lots of times and a beautiful space.

So go forth and do yoga. Namaste.

Yoga Vida Tucson

Posted on by

Yoga Vida Tucson

It’s strange to come back to Tucson because I have a lot of history here. I moved here in the mid 90’s on a whim and stayed for a decade, which was slightly longer than was good for me. In hindsight I only stayed long enough to do everything I needed to do, it just took longer than I thought. By the time I left I practically ran out of town.

Since 2006, I’ve been back to Tucson (usually reluctantly) every year or so to visit my friends and my storage shed. Normally I only stay for a brief few days but for one period of time in 2011, I moved back to Tucson temporarily to write a book and during that time I started going to this yoga studio regularly.

Being on the road all the time, I enjoy the familiarity of Bikram studios all across the nation. I know what I’m getting into and yet I have a different experience in each class. Bonnie and Yoga Vida are directly responsible for my love of yoga studios that teach the Bikram method without the dialogue. I can appreciate the need for dialogue and the emphasis on certain Bikram-specific practices (LOCK YOUR KNEE!)  but there’s a yoga spirit that can be lost in a Bikram class because of the stridency of the speech. What I really enjoy is doing a familiar sequence of poses with instructors that extemporize verbally, correct postures, tell stories and don’t talk about Japanese ham sandwiches. Plus I always come away with something to think about.

In class this weekend Bonnie started by saying “Let’s go into this slow. Work as hard as you want, but let’s start slow.”

That is pretty much the exact opposite of everything I hear in my normal life. Everything around me (including the drill sergeant in my head) says move fast, hit the ground running, catch up, you’re getting left behind. Nothing says “Go slow. Think about the work before you do the work. Easing in is ok…”

She followed this by saying “Let’s pretend we don’t know what these poses look like and focus on what they feel like.” In other words, lifting out of the arch of my foot doesn’t look like much but it feels gigantic. Shifting my gaze from my knee to my navel might not change anything about my posture but it changes everything about my intent. If I’m always depending on some exterior source, like a mirror, for corrections, I won’t ever know what it feels like to do it correctly because sometimes the changes are too small to be seen.

Interestingly, both of these sentiments can be flipped around. Some days are about starting fast, moving more and visually correcting myself. Pushing harder than I want to but getting further than I expect.

The trick is knowing what day it is.

 

Hot Yoga and Brunch in Albany

Posted on by

The Hot Spot Yoga

I had some good looking plans this morning. My friend Ryan McAlpine called me last week and after confused schedule swapping we discovered we were going to be an hour an a half away from each other while I was stopping over in Albany. He offered to drive up for brunch and I told him to come up around 11ish so I could do yoga before he got there.

I wanted to do Bikram, since I’m on a roll this week, but Albany doesn’t have a Bikram studio. However, they do have a few hot yoga places and I found one called Yoga for All Seasons that offered the Bikram method but then I got in my car and programmed the wrong yoga place in my GPS and ended up at the The Hot Yoga Spot. I spent a frustrating 15 minutes realizing that I wouldn’t make it to Yoga for All Seasons in time and I would have to wait an extra hour for a hot yoga flow class at Hot Spot, which meant changing brunch times on Ryan plus I had already checked out of my hotel so I had nowhere to go. It wasn’t even 9am and my whole morning had gone sideways.

It wasn’t the best way to anticipate a yoga class. But I waited an hour and then did the 10am Hot Yoga flow class and it was pretty hideous because I don’t do yoga, I do Bikram. Bikram is 26 yogic poses, always the same ones, whereas real yoga classes can be any one of a trillion poses in any combination. When I do real yoga I want a class where the poses are held and corrections are made and I can periodically look around at what everyone else is doing and then do something that approximates it. That is not how a flow class works. Flow classes are constant movement, changing poses with the breath more or less continuously for an hour. There’s no real time to look at the other kids papers and figure out how to cheat. This means that for a solid sweaty hour I attempted to use my peripheral vision to figure myself out and again remembered how stiff and inflexible I am right now.  Plus the only spot in the room was right next to the heater – HOTHOTHOTHOT – and the class was full of lithe young college students who clearly do yoga flow every day like it’s no biggie after which they wipe the light sheen of sweat off their foreheads and then go drink their skinny vanilla half caf lattes on the way to psych 101 classes. Not that I hate them but I’m pretty sure I’m smarter.

This is where my head goes in the heat when I’m trying to perch on a yoga block, balance my knees on my triceps and figure out crow pose.

Sigh.

Other than my incompetence it was a great yoga studio with two different work spaces, beautiful hard wood floors and those icy cold wet lavender towels as a reward for surviving class. And seriously, I’m complaining about a yoga class? I have no real problems. Let’s move on.

Cafe Madison

Brunch at Cafe Madison was good. Actually, the company  – Mr. McAlpine and Lady Allie Lin – was fantastic and the food was good. My broccoli fritatta – lower right corner – was light on broccoli and heavy on cheese but there were lots of different homemade breads and Allie’s bacon looked scrumptious. It’s a cute place with a patio. I bet in the summer time it’s gorgeous. I love Ryan and Allie for making the drive to see me. They’re good people and I’m lucky to know them.

I do have to give a shoutout to the Ala Shanghai Chinese Cuisine, a place from which I ordered takeout and expected very little and had my expectations blown to bits by the incredible food. I should have known from the menu, which looked very much like menus I encountered in China, offering things like “sea cucumber” and “lions head” and something called “yan-du-xian casserole.” I ordered the chicken and baby bok choy and it was delectable and perfectly cooked in a buttery white sauce. I wanted to go back with a bunch of people and order all the things I didn’t recognize so I could try everything.

If you’re in Albany, try the Chinese food at Ala Shanghai Chinese Cuisine and if you’re up for it, do a little yoga flow. I bet you’re super smart as well.

Is bikram yoga: Part 2

Posted on by

Someone commented on my Why bikram isn’t yoga post and as I replied, I realized I wanted to clarify a few things about my response.

I realize that picking on bikram yoga for it’s lack of spiritual drive seems kind of disingenuous because there are yoga classes with a reduced dose of spirituality all over the world. By the logic of my post, they also wouldn’t be yoga. Plus I’ve come to really appreciate bikram and I find it very meditative, so writing about its lack of intrinsic spirituality seems like a weird point to make that counteracts my own experience.

Perhaps I can say it better this way: Many physical practices are meditative and most of them are highly repetitive and unvaried in nature, like swimming, long distance running and mountain climbing. However, the intent of these practices isn’t spiritual and meditation is a byproduct that only some people acknowledge or care about. By contrast, certain practices like yoga and tai chi are intended to be spiritual and meditative. The physicality of the practice is specifically structured as a path to enter a meditative/spiritual state. Stripping yoga and tai chi of their spiritual intent reduces the practice. Without meditation, some of the reason for the practice is lost and the practitioner doesn’t gain the benefits.

Yoga practitioners don’t have to commune with God/the gods/spirituality in yoga in the same way that they can attend any church/temple/holy place of their choice and never open their spirits. But when they do either of these things, they’re just getting part of the practice because focusing on the only the physical rituals reduces the whole experience.

Bikram Choudhury should get credit for revamping and focusing 26 yoga asanas and creating a difficult physical practice with a lot of health benefits. Because he used a long-standing spiritual practice as a base, people assume there’s a spiritual nature to the bikram practice; and as with so many things, they’ll find what they’re looking for. But by removing spirituality from his dialogue, Bikram Choudhury potentially reduced the benefits for his practitioners because he’s taken away their teacher’s ability to guide and mentor them and allowed his students to practice with no spiritual intent.

Bikram practitioners have to bring their own spiritual questing to bikram yoga classes where they are likely to find all manner of meditative paths to explore but Bikram Choudhury should get no credit for their efforts.

Why Bikram Isn’t Yoga

Posted on by

In the West, the word yoga has become interchangeable with asana. Asanas are the postures people do in yoga classes but true yoga comes from the Sanskrit word “yoke” or “union” and it implies an integration of body, mind and spirit.

There can be no real yoga without a spiritual practice. Spiritual meditation and reflection are basic tenants of yoga. At it’s core, yoga isn’t about stretching, pulling and flexiness. It’s indirectly about health but it’s really about spirituality and it’s deeply rooted in meditation and the Hindu religion.

As a practice, Bikram has the least amount of spiritual direction and focus of any yoga system out there. Bikram Choudhury is so specific about how he wants the Bikram practice taught that he has scripted dialogue for his classes. Once his students open a Bikram certified studio they are obligated to teach the asanas in the order he prescribes, for the length of time he prescribes and using the words he’s given them. There is no mention of spirituality in the Bikram dialogue and I don’t think that’s an oversight.

Charlie Kaufman said that politicians promote things they want by making them look like things we want. I’d argue that that’s the definition of capitalism and that Bikram has excelled in this domain.  He’s gotten rich selling us health and “yoga.” I don’t intend to demonize him particularly by saying that. Sadly, I think that’s what yoga has become everywhere. It’s become “money” couched in terms of health/strength/curative properties, etc. and the spiritual practice has been sidelined. This is definitely truer in some studios than others but it’s 100% true in Bikram studios across the country. Spirituality is not an intrinsic part of the Bikram practice and no one has to reflect or mediate for a second in order to participate.

Now, here’s the thing: Whatever. So what if Bikram isn’t yoga in the truest sense of the word? That doesn’t mean that Bikram practitioners can’t be spiritual. They can bring their own spiritual practice to Bikram and the practice of pushing through 90 minutes of the same 26 poses every day creates its own meditative qualities.

I like that Bikram focuses on the body by pushing it to extremes. I go into that hot room and there’s no room for anything in my mind except my breath, movement, stillness, focus and balance. Bikram classes push me to the limits of my ability and my endurance and sometimes they open spiritual doorways in me. But this is because of who I am, not because of the practice of Bikram.

Bikram can be a meditative practice in spite of itself but true yoga requires spiritual intent. Without a spiritual component, Bikram cannot be yoga.

Anusara Yoga at Yoga Oasis

Posted on by

I tried Anusara yoga at Yoga Oasis last week. I did the YogaHour at 4:15 where for only $4 you get a relatively fast paced yoga flow class with music. The class was crowded but the vibe was nice and the studio is beautiful. I’d recommend it for anyone with a modicum of yoga history who wants a good cheap yoga class.

After a year of doing the 26 poses of Bikram, it was fun to do poses that I hadn’t done in a long time. Hello downward dog! I’ve missed you, pigeon… And part of me enjoyed the casual chatty atmosphere and the more Eastern oriented philosophy. I’ve always thought that at some point in my life, I’d get very seriously into yoga. It feels like a good plan for the decade of my 60’s when I’d probably welcome the combination of stretching, strength training and spirituality. If this turns out to be true, I might consider Anusara because I like the Hatha style and Friend’s philosophy.

But last week I realized that Anusara, like most yoga classes, emphasizes breadth. Breadth of understanding of a wide variety of poses, a broadening of your mind with the element of surprise that each new teacher brings when they teach their own series of poses, an acceptance of individualistic ways of doing things (within reason) and an accompanying realization that in one lifetime, it’s impossible to master “yoga” because it encompasses too many different teaching styles, philosophies and poses.

This is not the kind of physical expression I need right now. I need something demanding and difficult but with more boundaries. I need something that forces me to excel and something that I can wrap my mind around. I want some level of predictability and depth instead of breadth.

In short, I don’t want yoga. I want Bikram.

Thursday: why Bikram isn’t yoga…