While well I know that I shouldn’t seek approval or justification for a much needed day of rest(eff you for judging me!), I do. As I lay in bed from the hours of 9 am until noon when I should have been doing a yoga class or any number of other productive things that don’t include watching 6 episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I thought to myself “the reason I’m not at yoga right now is I’ve got a bit of a cold and my body is really sore from yoga yesterday.” Of course, I do have the sniffles and my body is wracked with pain (more on one side than the other) but neither of those things were severe enough to keep me bed ridden for majority of the day. Using these “ailments” as justification did however force me to ponder the nature of my body pain as resultant from yoga.

For the most part, the class I took yesterday was pretty standard…began with sun salutes, had some shit in the middle, inversions toward the end, bit of pranayama and then some nondescript seated meditation.  What was out the ordinary though was the “creative” sequencing and the sprinter like pacing. I will leave alone, for the time being, any sequencing issues…I’m but a novice myself and feel forgiving of that particular type of error,  but what I cannot understand is a teacher of a breath based movement class thinking that all students should be basically hyperventilating for the entire course of their yoga class. I was actually indirectly told I was moving too slowly and that I was holding up the class and messing up the group energy. WELL GEE, I’M SORRY.  I didn’t know it was a race. When you give me an exhale pose I think it wise to complete my exhale. Excuse me for mistaking a gentle full inhale and exhale for something more desirable than huffing and puffing.  seriously, I beg your pardon, I do.

A yoga class like that reminded me of a paradigm of the sexual dissonance between a man and a woman. Most women are familiar with the  male’s sexual misstep of speed and force equaling pleasure for their partner. Yes, yes, things are going along swimmingly and she begins to light up with passion, her eyes glimmer with desire…pupils dilate and then WHAM! He’s thwacking away at her like she’s a pinata stuffed with orgasm…but guess what? He’s just wildly swinging away and with each lunge he’s getting farther from the prize. No sir, she will not be bursting with candy for you tonight. You see, speed is not everything.  While you were jack hammering her, she was trying to slow you down so she could actually experience the loving. Maybe it felt good for you, but I am putting money on the fact that she thinks it could have gone a lot better. At the end of the night, she’s not mentally scarred or anything…it was fine. But just know that she probably will lose your number. Yoga teachers that “meth out” (I’m creating this phrase, here and now) their classes are like bad lovers. They just may actually be bad lovers.

When I inevitably run into this teacher in the store, or at a bar things will be awkward. I might avert my gaze until a brief, painful conversation is unavoidable. “Hey there, haven’t seen you around in a while…” “Oh, hi…um..yeah, well, you know. I’ve been…um…busy lately.” “Well, it’s really nice to see you again, maybe see you in class soon?” “Yeah, well, about that…I’m going to a different studio now. I’m really happy there. They just really satisfy certain needs.”

While I was in my “dream land” I kept you all in my thoughts, and I would occasionally catalog various items I felt worth blogging about. It was, however, to no avail and the only place those items of interest made it to was a “desktop sticky.” Here are the things I meant to tell you about, and please, remind me to embellish on these fledgling thoughts in the near future:  ayurveda (yes, again), chanting (it’s not weird, I swear), inner-tuning, Swami Vishnudevananda, Kirtan (more chanting!), Ashrams, Yogi Politics (ugh, just as unattractive as normal politics), Pratima (more ayurveda!), and intuitive healing.

But now I’ll tell you about what awakened me again: teaching. Oh, don’t get all bored already. It’s not some highfalutin tale of uplifting our nation’s youth. No, for that I recommend Jaime Escalante’s  tale of conquest over unruly ghetto teens in the field of  mathematics. At this point it has been about 7 months since I finished my first training and in another 5 months I will have finished my 500 hour training. That said, I don’t do a whole lot of teaching…just a bit here and there. I have my one “private student” and I teach some of the community classes at Yoga Sutra, which the community has apparently not heard of.  It is safe to say I don’t have an outstanding understanding of what it means to be a teacher, but I have definitely been a student for long enough to understand the community and the climate surrounding most yoga spots. Let’s just say it can get pretty weird out there. Anytime you take people’s vanity and egos and intermingle it with spirituality and inner-searchiness (yes, I just made up that term and yes, you’re welcome to use it at will) you are just down right asking for trouble. Mix in entitlement coming from the fact that practicing yoga is pretty pricey and you’re teetering on the edge of disaster.

Fortunately, in my short life as a yoga teacher I have not had to deal much with any of this. But I know it is out there. People come to yoga with a preconceived notion of  yoga and then get disappointed, or even angry when they don’t get what they came for. How dare we, as yoga teachers, stray from the accepted standards of uttanasana, plank, chaturanga, up-dog, down-dog?  How dare we ask you to chant the sacred syllable OM? How dare we introduce chanting or visualization? WHY IN GOD’S NAME ARE  WE WASTING YOUR EXERCISE TIME WITH MEDITATION? GODDAMN US! Listen people, the goal of yoga is meditation. If you can’t deal with that as a possible end destination, then perhaps a spin class might be more suitable. I will tell you though, that spin classes are pretty brutal on the crotch. So, get yourself a pair of those shorts with the special panty pads so that you don’t bruise your mons pubis or your balls, if you have those.

I welcome all into my classes, but I believe that it is with an open mind/heart that you must come into any new experience. I don’t go Mario Batali’s restaurant and tell him how to make a pasta sauce (although I might remind him, as I often do to others, that tomatoes are not a plant native to Europe and thus a tomato sauce is really not native  to Italian cuisine). It is really nice, as a teacher, to feel like you are teaching and that you are making a difference even if it is minute. Not that I have never had this feeling before,  and not that I don’t enjoy teaching all of my classes (though few, and often completely empty) but tonight it was profound. I had a class full of young college students who were brand new beginners. They had pretty much only heard of yoga and didn’t really have too many expectations. They were just there, in their jeans and t-shirts for the most part but they were committed to do yoga (whatever that meant) for the hour they were in my care. Varying levels of flexibility and ability made themselves apparent pretty much immediately but everyone was really into it, smiling and awaiting the next challenge. They also didn’t put too much a stake in the class, which seems to have meant that they enjoyed it more. I didn’t feel like I was being held directly responsible for someone’s salvation, physical transformation or otherwise. Let me tell you peeps, that takes off a huge load of pressure and really makes the teaching experience shine through with a new wattage. I’m no Ghandi, and I’m not Hans-n-Franz. Although, truthfully I wish were a bit more like all of those people.

Needless to say, it was a refreshing experience. Really, though, the most important aspect of this experience is the resuscitation of the Dharma Chameleon. Welcome back, bitches.

My body, however, is something I spend a lot of time thinking about…particularly how it is working and how I might encourage it to function even more efficiently. Any time I get an unknown pain or ache in my middle back I immediately finger my liver or kidneys as the culprit for the trouble. Well, ultimately I suppose my habits would be to blame and my poor organs only the unfortunate victims of abuse. Sorry organs, my bad. That said, I figured that perhaps it may be time to give the ‘ol processing plant a holiday; thus I began a cleanse.

When I hear people talk about cleansing I immediately get nervous and start cataloging all of the delicious food that they’re not eating that I still have the privilege of gorging on day in and day out. My reaction is not uncommon. Every time I told someone that I was on a cleanse the reaction varied from curiosity to shock and horror to exuberant rounds of congratulatory words. Cleanses are bad ass, and not to be messed with. AND YOU KNOW THIS, MAAAAN (50 points to whoever catches the reference)

Well, I knew that, man…and I decided that if I wanted to do some sort of fasting cleanse (juice in my case, but you may be familiar with a water cleanse like the “master cleanse”) then I had better come up with a plan. The last time I attempted a juice fast I failed in under 24 hours. After 2 meals of juice or coconut water,  somewhere around 3pm, I got a massive headache and started to get the shakes like a smack addict that lost their dealer. Needless to say, I figured I was dying from my 18 hours of deprivation and resumed eating. With this past experience in mind I decided to alter my strategy. (Although, in retrospect I think that since my last attempt my eating habits have changed significantly and leveled out…I was probably pretty toxic at that point and assume myself much less so now) I figured if I wanted to succeed at the juice fast level that I’d better build preparatory levels in to arrive at juice fasting and git ‘er done.

My plan:

Day 1-10 — Remove all caffeine, refined sugars and dairy

Day 10-17 — The above plus no gluten products

Day 17-22 — RAW

Day 22-25 — Juice

That’s really a 25 day cleanse there, people, and I have to say that it worked quite well for me. So well, in fact, that I was able to extend my juice fast to 5 days. Comfortably. Since I’ve been cleansing for nearly a month, I’ve had many opportunities to discuss this with tons of interested parties and I’ve come to realize that cleansing is HIGHLY individual. A training buddy, Nargus (word.) who eats almost raw out of habit and doesn’t do dairy or refined sugar anyway could not do this cleanse. My friend from work, Vinny, who subsists on a steady diet of burgers, subway and ham and gov’ment cheese sandwiches would probably need to cleanse, gradually, for a year before he’d be able to do a juice fast (if ever). I’m pretty sure that he completely avoids all food that grows from the earth…so, well, maybe juice is an unlikely scenario altogether. Really, you just have to know your body and gradually take all of your nasty little habits out one by one…starting with the dirtiest crap (in my case, refined sugars) first and then eventually ridding yourself of the lesser offenders.

It’s all over for me now. Today I introduced solid foods back into my life. I was pretty excited about that because I love food, but I have to say, I sort of miss being “on a cleanse” already. I had a sense of purpose and achievement for a full month because I was so disciplined in working towards a goal. I also realized that what the body needs pretty much has zero to do with what you want. When I was juicing three fresh juices were really enough for me to feel good all day. It put some things into perspective for me. Just because I am eating healthy does not mean I need to over eat to compensate. Seriously, I do this all the time. I figure that because I’m having a salad, I should eat like I’m never going to see food again. Wrong. Not feeling “full” actually feels really good to me, and now that I’m eating solid food again, I am missing the feeling of a non-hungry, yet empty, belly. Don’t get your panties in a twist, I’m not going rexy on you or anything. I do think that I will try to not eat refined sugars ever, and also eliminate a lot of gluten based foods. That shit is just plain ‘ol bad. But, remember kiddies, everything is probably ok in moderation…I’ll probably have something with gluten in it occasionally or something with sugar. Who cares.

Tomorrow is day 2 of breaking the fast. Some other blog told me I should eat dried fruits that are soaked and lick a grapefruit or something like that. I think I’ll probably make something up like I made up all this crap you just read…cause, well, I’m creative like that. And, I’m clean. Ohhh yeah.

[Image via: Pattern File]

My whole approach is going to seem roundabout so hold on to your hats ladies and gents. The question: Is yoga celebrity ok (and can I justify trying to become one?) I start this discussion with Krishnamacharya, who by no means had the same goals or motives as yours truly, because he is largely responsible for beginning the popularization of yoga, especially in its appeal to Westerners. Again, stick with me here. He did this by (are you ready?) going on tour and taking his most advanced and impressive pupils with him. Yoga did not always have a shining clean name,  and in fact, was viewed as a nasty taboo.  Nobody wanted to practice yoga next to the freaky unwashed guy with the dreaded beard who sleeps on a bed of nails…(ok, so if you lose the bed of nails I actually probably practiced next to this guy plenty of times.) Plainly put, yoga was in a bad way and Krishnamacharya took to the streets to right the good name of yoga.

Can’t I do the same thing? If my intentions are pure can I not travel the world spreading the good word about yoga? Forget the fact that I wrote a questionable post about Tara Stiles for one moment, because she sort of has the right idea.  Most people, if not outright idiots, are very scared down to the core. Anything that is novel or different just sets them a-shaking in their proverbial boots. I myself remember tormenting a girl in 6th grade because she was ethnic and brought “weird” food to lunch from home that was fragrant and did not look at all reminiscent of my daily ham sandwich (which, due to conservative household finances, probably turned out to be far more questionable in reality). Now-a-days I will readily obliterate any ethnic food. YUM. But, something had to open my eyes to these experiences…I could have just hoarded slimy ham sandwiches for my entire life. But look at me now. Yeah.

My long belabored point here is that people are missing the point of yoga so much of the time. Yoga and asana are not synonymous.  Asana practice is just the catchy hook that mires a song in your head until you know all of the lyrics by heart and belt it out (at an embarrassing volume) when you’re alone in the car. An asana practice is inextricable from a yoga practice but it is by far not the most important part – it is more of a building  block. The thing of it is is that the meat of yoga, so to speak, is a little bit tougher for most Westerners to hunker down with. Not because it is weird but because it isn’t a ham sandwich. (What is that GREEN thing on your lunch, Uuuuuthra? Is that a FROG? Gross. It smells.) It’s like trying to describe something for which you’ve not built a vocabulary and that makes us terribly uncomfortable.

Being a total worshiper of the written word, I feel I could be the vocabulary teacher (not that I haven’t gone down that road before…) to the masses curious about the language of yoga.  What they need (at first, only) are more Tara Stiles to bait that hook, and then more Krishnamacharyas, Dharma Mittras, Desikachars, etc. to really cultivate the true tenets of yoga. But what if there were an all-inclusive deal? I make no such claim to be all at once Tara Stiles and Krishnamacharya, but I’d be willing to give it a go in the future! Don’t be sore with me, I’m just saying…It’s OK to dream, right? C’mon….sheeeeesh. FINE. FINE. FINE…

Delusions of grandeur again…don’t tell my shrink.

[images (in order) via: Wikipedia, Elephant Chronicles, Duck and Cover]

I will yoga in teepee.

As I swirl deeper and deeper down the yoga funnel, I find myself considering things like yoga vacations, retreats and yoga-music hybrid fests… and say to myself, this is not my beautiful house, this is not my beautiful wife and I ask myself, HOW DID I GET HERE? Ok, well maybe David Byrne of the Talking Heads said that and maybe I don’t have a house or a wife to consider, but along with my consideration of these events I find myself considering who makes these events happen.  Automatically I am in awe of the personage behind each and every one of these events, or at least the ones they put in the spotlight. I figure that if people are paying hundreds of dollars to bliss out at Wanderlust then the people featured as teachers or speakers must be pretty amazing…but what is it that makes them so?

My teacher is thoroughly amazing. I’ve never seen a practice like hers in my entire life, and she is so without ego that anyone would be beyond privileged to learn from her…and yet, I do not see her name on the docket of these major festivals and conferences. It’s not that she’s inexperienced either – she’s been teaching for 20 some years and in New York, no less. So how does one get on the list of all-important yoga teachers? Where is that line drawn in the sand and how do I get on the side that teaches yoga classes to the masses from a stage with a headset? (Here is where my teacher would probably cringe, and I sigh with relief that I never gave her my blog’s URL)

Included on the short list of yoga teachers invited to speak at conferences and festivals are David Life, Sharon Gannon, David Swenson, Dharma Mittra, Alan Finger, Seane Corn, Jason Crandel, Rodney Yee and Baron Baptiste. I had heard of most of these people before seeing their names listed as presenters. Baron Baptiste is responsible for his own brand of yoga, Rodney Yee has some DVDs that do very well and David Life, Sharon Gannon, Dharma Mittra, as well as Alan Finger are all NYC yoga scene fixtures. I’ve practiced extensively at Dharma’s studio and have spent time at both Jivamukti (Life and Gannon’s home) and ISHTA (Finger).  Also, all of these people have been prevalent on the scene since the 70′s and 80′s. That’s a long time. The people I’m interested in are the ones that are like 35 – 40, and what has made them so wildly successful in such a relatively short time that people want to see them speak?

Burning, burning questions. I sense a research series coming on. First victim: Seane Corn.

[image via: stay on fountain ave]

My mind, however, always half pondering something in the realm of yoga, recently lighted on the prospect of yoga tourism. A novel idea, I thought, because yoga has a great tendency to be introspective and reflective. A-ha! Something one could do alone. We’ve all seen Julia Roberts tackle meditation at an ashram –sheeeit, if she can do it, I can.

Yoga is a journey and, now apparently, a destination vacation. I could go to the Bahamas or I could go the mountains…a retreat center that is glitzy or stay in a tent. These options were not really a surprise to me, but really what struck me as novel was the growing number of yoga/music festivals out there. Obviously, there is some strong correlation between liking music and liking yoga. I happen to like both.

The most obvious yoga/music event is Wanderlust. I imagine at one point there was a sole festival, but it has blossomed in recent years to include three festive locations!  Depending on your personal inclinations you can jet set to Miami, Tahoe or Vermont. (The one in Miami is at the Standard…um?) I’d love to know the story of how Wanderlust developed, but the site is too hard to navigate and is yielding unto me no easy answers. I do see, however, that there are 19,000 some people that “like” the event on facebook. This makes me think that if I went this event I would need to bring my xanax.  But still…I’m curious.

Aside from Wanderlust, there are several “lesser” festivals: Telluride Yoga Festival, Flagstaff Yoga Festival, Bhakti Fest, Evolve Music and Yoga, and the Ojai Yoga Crib.  I have to say that living in New York,  one of the most proliferant yoga communities in the west  (in my opinion), I have maybe only heard gentle whispers of the existence of any of these festivals. I was actually surprised/amused to find that they all have functional and up to date (for the most part) websites, and full line-ups  of interesting yoga people. Telluride will even feature some people that call themselves yoga slackers (presumably because of something called slack line yoga that I haven’t ever heard of.) All said though, I should probably get myself to one of these events this year…the Evolve festival is in the JERZ so, I could pretty easily swing that one.

Nothing like yoga, music and New Jersey to help one find their inner selves.

[image via: some Sony Ad]

Well, I had two packs to choose from, and being that I’m no longer 12 years old and I live in a major city where it perhaps isn’t desirable for everyone on the MTA to know my name via the cheesy monogram, I chose the somber grey Northface bag. I had found this bag on the street several years earlier, when I moved to NYC and didn’t have a fear of skeevies (aka bedbugs).  The bag served me well for the most of my 200 Hr training until I got drunk one snow night and initiated a tackling war with my friend’s husband. That was the end of that bag, and the beginning of me carrying my back pack from middle school. Now, this bag was mildly embarrassing to begin with as it had my name monogrammed on it and was complete with drawings and my personal tag line from that period of my life “your momma,” but that was nothing compared to the shame it brought after its zippers broke and I was forced to hold it together with safety pins.  Sad.

I am my parent’s daughter and thus frugal to the core, but I have to say, I committed to a new bag and I’m SO EXCITED I COULD PEE. Ok, maybe that is a bit of hyperbole…but seriously, check this out: it has a wet suit pouch and a cooler! I wish I were cool enough to be a surf chick, but since I’m not, I fully plan on making the wet suit pouch into a secret cavity to house nasty yoga clothes away from any other precious cargo! After a good Mysore practice in the morning I most certainly have some clothing that needs to be quarantined.

The last back pack that I purchased was purchased almost 14 years ago. They have come a long way folks, I look forward to carrying all sorts of yoga non-sense in my new bag…it comes tomorrow!

It took me a little while to realize that toenails of any length beyond the flesh of the nail bed was a distinct health risk because my Astanga practice is quite the work in progress. When I first started the whole affair was a bit of a mess…I had very few poses, and the practice of those precious few was punctuated by (loving?) barking of instructions when I would mess up the sequence or space out and forget what the following pose was supposed to be.  In the Mysore tradition, your teacher gives you poses as you are ready for them, and refines whatever damage you’ve done to the ones you’ve already received.

One day a few months ago, I realized I had gained the strength required of me to start jumping through from downward dog. This is tough because jelly-abs really don’t do the trick. So, naturally, I was thrilled with myself and concluded that not only was I awesome, but also jacked. This is where I started to realize the toenail terror. Jumping through wasn’t terribly smooth at first (and I’m not necessarily implying that it  is by any means a smooth operation now…) and on my way through my arms, I would often catch my toes on my forearms. Result: pain, brush burns, bruises and the occasional trickle of blood.

I looked abused, and the looks of concern on the faces of those asking about my injuries instantly melted into confusion (disgust?) when I revealed the source of my damage was my very own toenails.

While I would like to say that the proficiency level of my jump throughs improved and left my arms to heal, it is sadly only a partial truth. On a good, strong day, my jump throughs go well enough to preserve my arms and hands but I’ve recently also been shown how to correctly do jump backs. Let me just tell you, it has given me tons more toenail contact time. Thank god, because I thought I might really miss bleeding on my mat at 6:30 am every morning.

You’re obviously reading this and thinking, “why the hell doesn’t she just get some toenail clippers? Gross.” This is a totally understandable sentiment, but honestly…I do clip them regularly. Its just that the only way to stop the violence is to really cut them to the quick. Like cutting them to a degree that makes fashionable pedicurists very very uncomfortable.  Seriously, last time I clipped my toenails they were raw and sore for days – but you know what wasn’t? Yep, my forearms.

This week I sliced my hand open with my 4th toenail. That’s a first. Oh, the humanity!

The only reasonable solution is to become exceedingly awesome at yoga.  Either that, or I might invent some small toe-capping device to protect myself from future harm…I’ll save the discussion of the trials and tribulations of finger nails for another day.

[Image via: Dharma Chameleon]