And Patrick pulled an oldie, but a goodie.  Cyndi Lee’s Om Yoga practice.  Never really done this one, so I’m excited to see what it’s like.  I don’t even know if this is still available.

More about Om Yoga.

So this week I had Maya Fiennes’s Kundalini Yoga to Detox and Destress.  For those who know me, you know that I have a verbal love/hate relationship with Kundalini Yoga.  In truth, I deeply love the practice of Kundalini Yoga.  It’s eccentric, energetic, and it’s unabashedly concerned with the achievement of God consciousness within the constraints of the householder life.  When I’m practicing it, I hate every moment of flapping like a crazed Muppet attempting to put out a fire; when I’m done, I feel empty and full simultaneously.  So it was with both revulsion and eagerness that I sat down to “flap my crap.”

The DVD is lead by Maya Fiennes, who I assumed was mostly famous because of the last name.  She’s dressed in white in the video, in a white “room” with a white sheepskin underneath her.  You could just imagine the set catering being fettuccine alfredo with a sauvignon blanc.  Her voice is incredibly soothing and somehow Macedonian sounding, so it makes the whole video a lovely experience which really should end with baklava.

The practice was actually pretty mild compared to the kriyas that the wonderful Ann DaPrato used to throw at us on Sunday mornings.  The first part of the video starts with a basic warm-up consisting of spinal movements and life nerve stretching.  Spinal flex is followed by sufi grind and then an upper body twist.  She ends with neck rolls and life nerve stretch.  After each exercise she has you pull up on the “mulabhand” which she describes as squeezing the anus, the sex organs, and the abdomen.  This is an interesting cue, as it is biologically impossible to squeeze the anus and the perineum simultaneously (it’s because of the way the nervous system is wired).  However, she also encourages you to smile and enjoy.  Personally, I know that whenever I’m squeezing my bunghole, it’s a rocking good time, so I relaxed my shoulders and smiled broadly.

After the warm-up, we went into the main sequence.  The first pose involves reach the arms open wide and then bringing the hands back to the heart.  It’s one of the those shoulder achers that kundalini yoga just loves to have in it.  You feel like one of those crazed monkeys with cymbals banging away at your karma.  Maya continously exhorts the practitioner to break through the pain barrier and make the choice to continue.  To be honest, it wasn’t that challenging, but the shoulders definitely got warm and achy and I felt ooey-gooey after finishing it.  We then went into breath of fire, cannon breath, and “Har” chanting to cleans the adrenals and kidneys.  This breathing and sound sequence was very doable, and I always love a good breath of fire through pursed lips (cannon breath).  I felt like a chimp attempting to signal my interest in a banana — or a Japanese sex doll.

The second half of the sequences proceeds in rapid order, beginning with body drops.  Basically you lift your butt up and drop it to the floor.  It’s meant to raise the energy in the body and refuel the adrenals.  I was sincerely worried about the people below us when I did that.  One of the exercise was sitting in staff pose and then reach forward and then rocking back on to the sacrum.  I realized as I was doing this that I was slowly starting to depants myself and my underwear was doing what the body drops couldn’t — making contact with my kundalini.  The last time I did the practice (January 21) my underwear was pretty far up there.  Luckily my kundalini had risen, otherwise I would have been flossing its teeth.

At the end of the practice, Maya ends with a Sat Nam chant three times (no Sunshine song).  She then finishes the practice by saying “Thank you God.”  I think that’s a wonderful way to end the practice.  I felt awesome and recharged after most of the practices.  This week I had some really heavy lifting in my workouts, along with strenuous poses in my yoga class, so I was pretty wiped by the end of the week.  Thank you, though, to Maya for creating a great and accessible Kundalini workout and for helping me flap out my crap.

On to Week 4!

And guess what Patrick pulled for me?

Here we go with flapping my crap!

More on Kundalini Yoga.

I’ve always loved Gary Kraftsow and his version of therapeutic yoga.  I first came into contact with him at the 2005 Yoga Journal San Francisco conference, and I became something of a groupy for a bit.  I never bit the bullet and spent the 20-odd thousand dollars to become a viniyoga therapist, but I’ve definitely incorporated my study of his techniques and writings into my public yoga classes.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of heavy lifting lately at Staley Performance Institute, along with elliptical and stationary bike cardio. It’s created quite a bit of load on my back and knees, and I was beginning to feel the impact.  When Patrick pulled out the viniyoga practice, I was thrilled because it seemed like exactly the thing that I need to get my back stabilized and happy with me.  I laid off the cardio for the week and practiced the postures four times this week.

The DVD itself is from my good friends at Pranamaya (hey Mark and Ian).  While I did not watch the lecture material on the DVD, Gary has always been a lucid and complete presenter with an engaging style.  The DVD contains lectures on the anatomy of low back issues, as well as a description of how to do all of the adaptations of the asanas.  Viniyoga is part of the Krishnamacharya tradition, and so uses many of the asanas that mainstream vinyasa, Ashtanga, and Iyengar are familiar with.  However, viniyoga typically synchronize repetitions of asana with breath, entering and exiting the final form several times to progressively achieve benefits from the pose.  It is one of the elements of viniyoga that I’ve always loved, along with the idea that the pose adapts to the person, not the other way around. (Iyengar yoga believes the opposite, which is likely a function of when Iyengar left Krishnamacharya’s tutelage to teach in Pune.)

There are three practices on the DVD — a back stabilization, a hip opening, and a strengthening practice.  All three are very slow and gentle, and last about 30 minutes on average.  I practiced all three on the first day, and then alternated between them for the remainder of the days.  Overall, my back and hips felt more stable after each of the practices, especially on the days when I was doing deadlifts in the morning and then practicing at night.  It reminded me that the practice doesn’t need to be long or strenuous to be effective — it has to be targeted and comprehensive.

The practices follow much of the same format — variations of apanasana, dvi pada pitham, chakravakasan, bhujungasana, and vimanasana (kind of like salabhasana).  Each one is done with breath leading the movement, and with the focus on the entrance and exit of the pose.  There is not a lot of holding in the sequences.  For example, in dvi pada pitham he would have you start with the feet and knees together, lift up and down for a few repetitions, and then widen the feet.  The progression of the base of the pose would change the emphasis of the asana.  After each asana there is a short rest to feel the effects of the pose.  I found the rest periods to be both delicious and reflective, allowing me to feel the benefits of the poses.  The one strengthening sequence included some additional poses (such as an utkatasana variation), but fundamentally followed the format of the other two.  I loved the hip opening sequence, as it included this wonderful hip stretch in lunge and a variation of jathara parvritti with top leg lift to strengthen the hip.  Yummy, and totally going to be added to my public classes.

I totally loved my week with viniyoga.  This is the kind of practice that I could see myself popping into at lunch and being able to do as a midday refresher for my body.  It comes with MP3 files of the practices, so it’s easy to do the practice even if you don’t have a DVD player.

For week two the practice is: Viniyoga Therapy for the Low Back, Sacrum and Hips.  Probably a great boon given the shadow yoga practice and my personal training workouts.  This video comes from the most wonderful yoga video company on the planet, Pranamaya.

More on Viniyoga: http://www.viniyoga.com/

Shadow Yoga is one of the least mainstream of the modern schools of yoga.  I’ve always had an affinity for it, based on both its unique prelude forms and its founder, Shandor Remete.  The first prelude form is called Balakrama — literally “strength progress” or “Stepping into Strength.”  While the set contains the first two forms in a “semi-instructional style,” I chose to focus on Balakrama.  This decision was based on fact that the forms build on each other and that I was mostly unfamiliar with the movements of Balakrama.

The DVD itself begins with several warnings, one of which is to not exceed your personal capacity while practicing.  The second is the statement that it may take up to 7 years to master the form.  They are not kidding when they give a watcher these warnings.  The practice is not a joke, and the movements are unique, both on the gross and the subtle level.  Above all, it’s not a practice that “wows” you on the surface — it is surgically precise system of movement that is intended to transform you physically and energetically.

So the main thing about Shadow Yoga is uddiyana bandha — the belly lock.  It’s applied practically every single exhale.  This cultivates quite a bit of energy in the belly, and definitely does not work well when you are full of anything.  The constant pulling of the abdomen creates huge amount of energy in the lower belly, and also seemed to shoot my blood pressure way up.  Probably not the best thing to do when I’m already a borderline candidate for blood pressure medication, but I still did it.  By the end of the practice all of my awareness really centered on the navel, and during one of my four practices of the form, I felt the energy there very prominently.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The DVD is not very instructional.  Basically, Emma Balnaves (the other main teacher of Shadow Yoga) stars in the video, and the only cues are inhales and exhales.  Watching the screen becomes significantly important; however, that makes practicing difficult, especially given the fact that there are several forward folds.  It also is made more difficult by the fact that there aren’t many standard poses in the form.  This made the practice not very rhythmic for me; this must be why the disclaimers at the video say to watch it for several days to become familiar with it.  Note to self: follow directions.

The prelude form consists of movements that develop strength and flexibility in the legs.  For example, the first movement is a series of squats with the heels raised, followed by a deep squat rolled onto the outer edges of the feet.  With all of the leg work that I’ve been doing in my other workouts, my knees and quads were giving me serious feedback during this segment.  That lead into full side splits and full front splits (samakonasana and hanumanasana). And don’t forget all that uddiyana bandha.

There’s also this sequence where you go into a squat and then proceed to reach back, arch into Wheel pose, and then come around through the other side back into the squat.  This mandala of wheel pose is incredibly challenging.  There was actually one point where it felt like I was starting to get it.  That was short lived, and not relived the next time I practiced.

The final part of the practice involves the practice of bodhaka mudra, “skillful handiwork.”  This was the most interesting but difficult aspect of the practice, as it has to do with mudras and arm movements that are difficult to follow.  However, the arm movements and pranayama were incredibly meditative and developed the energy of the practice even more fully.  During one practice, I felt an almost trance-like state.  The practice ends with meditation with the awareness in the navel.

All in all, this first experience with yoga and movement was very rewarding, but also the most challenging.  As a style completely different from my own practice, it helped me explore movements and positions in a novel way.  It also brought me back into awareness of the benefit of uddiyana bandha as a practice within yoga.  It will influence my future practice of yoga, and taught me the benefit of moving out of my comfort zone.

Time to go get the yoga bag and grab the next video.

And the first week of practice is: Shadow Yoga.  This video is actual the original forms — there is another updated set that I also have the DVD for.

More on Shadow Yoga:

www.shadowyoga.com

Shadow Yoga – Balakrama

Like many people, I tend to make resolutions for each year.  Near the end of the year, I restarted my personal yoga practice.  I’ve traditionally had a hard time developing and maintaining a home practice — mostly because I enjoy teaching yoga classes more than I like practicing.  However, I had several realizations in November that clearly showed me how my lack of consistently practicing asana, pranayama, and meditation was negatively impact my physical, emotional, and spiritual health.  I now practice regularly, and I enjoy rediscovering my strength and flexibility.

While doing some house cleaning I went through my yoga and movement videos.  I had quite a few.  Shiva Rea is the clear winner, but I have a diverse set of videos covering Kundalini, Yin, Jivamukti, Ashtanga, and other styles.  I decided to count them, and found out that I had 52 videos with physical practices.  I then decided to do 52 weeks of yoga practices from the videos, for at least 3 days a week.  I currently do yoga 5 days a week, but my practice is also intended to balance my current weightlifting regimen on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The way this will work is the following: I placed all of the videos into a giant felt bag that Amazon.com used to wrap one of Patrick’s gifts.  Each Saturday, Patrick will reach into the bag and pull out a video.  Whatever the video, I will have to do it.  In addition to yoga, there is also one Qi Gong video and a couple of Bollywood dance videos (I feel bad for the neighbors downstairs).  Each week, I’ll report on this blog which video was chosen, and then I’ll summarize my experience each Saturday, and a new one will be chosen.

This should be an exciting adventure.  I’m looking forward to the exploration of my body, mind, and breath through these diverse practices.

It’s been over a week since we returned from Iceland.  I am now sitting in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, a pit stop on the way to Albuquerque for sacred time with my father.  As I flew from Sacramento to Phoenix, I read Doug Lansky’s “The Rough Guide First-Time Europe.”  The wanderlust bug has bitten me full-force, and I now officially ready travel books the way middle aged women read Danielle Steele novels.

What happened in those last few days in Iceland?  Well, the Sunday following Club NASA was spent in complete and total detox.  I don’t think we left our the apartment or changed out of pajamas the whole day.  We were beginning to get ready for the journey home, and I was actively yearning to be back home.

On Monday, we went for a horseback riding tour outside of Reykjavik.  I have not been on a horse in about 20 years, but it sounded like fun.  According to a program on YouTube, Icelandic horses have not been crossed-bred for over a thousand years, and therefore have developed a few unique characteristics.  They seem smaller than most horses, but have beautiful manes and a particular gait between their walk and trot known as a “tot.”  At least that’s what we found out when we began our riding.  Some poor Norwegian man and his daughter were on the tour, and his horse just would not cooperate.  The constant cries of “Nei, Nei!” as the horse stopped to eat grass and everything else in sight was comical.  And then it would gallop to catch up with us.  Thank goodness he was of good humor, because the existential despair of the whole situation would have defeated a less good-natured person.

In the days since returning, I have occasionally missed the energy of Iceland and its beauty.  The people, the alcohol, the landscapes, the alcohol, and the waters all reflect the ancient spirit that dwells in the place.  In combination with Iceland, it has awoken in me my desire to travel frequently and deeply, investigating the heart and spirit of places and how the reflect the space and presence within myself.  Takk fyrir for all those we met, all the things we saw, and the gifts–physical and spiritual–that continue to remain with me. 

Takk fyrir, too, for all the alcohol — I’ll send you the dialysis bill.