These Boots Are NOT Made For Walkin'

Last night I had the pleasure of attending a show at my tiny town's sh*tty music venue. WAIT! did that yogi just dis her town's music hot spot? No, I did not. See the venue is a barn, a barn that was kind of falling down till some very groovy folks but a little money and a lot of time and sweat equity into it and then invited some groovy musician folks out to the middle of nowhere and asked them to play music in it. I can only guess the name was something of a running joke that stuck but check it out, Sh*tty Barn.

Ok shameless Community plug over, on to the blog, so I was at the Sh*tty Barn, listening to the singer ramble on aimlessly, and quite frankly adorably, about how he didn't have anything to ramble aimlessly about. So he told us about his shoes and how when I was walking his dog 4 years ago he thought they were the most comfortable shoes in the world but today, 4 years later while walking his dog before the show all he could think about was "these are the most uncomfortable shoes in the world!" And we the audience giggled because like I said this guy was adorable, I think I even heard the term "man crush" a time or two.

Not that shoes automatically get me to thinking about yoga but this morning I was driving through the hills I was thinking about my own 6 year old boots and how they are kind of wearing out but I keep wearing them and that's when I thought about yoga. I remembered a teacher of mine saying that we live our day to day lives in the "illusion of comfort." He was teaching us some anatomy and what he meant was that instead of using our muscles to hold up our bodies we arrange ourselves so that we stack our joins on top of each other and "sit" in them, or we over extend out joints and rely on our connective tissue to do the work. This is bad for a few reasons:

1. When we "sit" in our joints the connective tissue (ligaments and tendons) is slack which over time will lead to the tightening of that tissue causing limited range of motion and flexibility. It can also put pressure on the fluid filled sacks (bursa) in our joints that help keep the joint lubricated so that it moves easily and also keeps the bones from grinding on one another. When we put pressure on these sacs the fluid can start to inflame or worse seep out of the membranes.

2. When we "align" ourselves with our hips popped forward or to one side, or hyperextend our knees what we are doing is stretching our connective tissue to its max, creating a sort of tendonous "hammock" for our bodies to rest in. This is bad because while the one side is over stretched the opposite side is retracting, this over time creates major imbalances in our bodies. In massage school we call is compensatory damage, where one side over works to correct the injured side.

So why is this an illusion of comfort? Because there's no work involved, it feels good because we are making little to no effort to hold ourselves up right. But, over time we develop aches, pains and possible injuries because we've relied on parts of our bodies to do the work of the muscles. That's why so many people in a yoga class discover they can easily go into a pose on one side of the body and find terrible discomfort and limitations on the other side. Which is also why yoga is so good for us, it helps us find and correct these imbalances but it also teaches us to be aware of how our bodies get like that.

Once you are steeped in your asana practice you begin to notice your posture when do everyday things like; filling out your back deposit, or doing the dishes, or leaning against a wall listening to a great singer/songwriter perform in barn in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. But not only do you notice you start to alter your faux comfort into a little effort that soon becomes effortless; you stop rounding your shoulders down at the desk, you pull your hips off the rim of the sink and when you look down and realize your shoes are hurting your feet you throw them out and get new ones!

Maybe I could get Dietrich Gosser to write a song about that...

A Yogi Flies to New York

Ok, really want to test your yoga-ness? Travel. Seriously, between the ridiculous fares, baggage fees (don’t get me started…) overpriced refreshments and all around feeling like cattle or sardines or some other animal forced into tiny enclosed areas among high numbers of its fellow creature-kind. And that’s the little stuff.

For me travel presents two major challenges to my yogi lifestyle; one: the weather delay/canceled flight, two: my fear of death.

So number one: weather. There’s nothing to be done of it! nope, no matter how hard we wish, hope and pray the weather is out of our hands. So you’re flying to New York to see your brother in his first ever Broadway show, ever?! Great, how about a historical snow storm, one the likes New York hasn’t seen in over a hundred years? And if that wasn’t enough to ruin your day, your airline insist that they will get out tonight, even though they closed JFK, let me repeat” CLOSED JFK!, they stand by that they will get out tonight. So your flight time, 12:20pm goes by, then, 1 o’clock, then 2:30, then 3:30, then 5:00 before you give and throw in the towel. Or worse! You stick it out, board the plane at 8pm take off and make it 45 minutes out before LaGaurdia sends word tat it’s too bad to land and your flight gets sent back to Cincinnati and you wind up sleeping on the airport. (for the record, I did not sleep in the airport, I bailed at 5, but read on please…)

Now this is a situation that would test even the most balanced individual and in my past would have sent me into such a rage, a rage I was so embarrassed to display that I would be in tears and there by rendered unfit to find the best outcome for the situation. But luckily, now I have yoga in my life I’m able to keep the adult tantrum at bay and look around and just observe my situation. I look next to me and see my traveling companion; this person that I asked to accompany me on a vacation because I love them and I want to spend some time together. And here we are spending time together, keeping each other amused and laughing when life throws curve balls (or in this case, snow balls). I look around me a little more observing the pushy New Yorkers feeling put upon because they can’t get back home, or the pity partiers who spin their sob stories like they could make the weather feel sorry and change and then notice the counter agent and her calm demeanor as she deals with such people. You can instantly tell she is moving from a place of integrity, I listen as she calmly tells the people at the desk how the delays will continue but that she spoke to the pilot and he feels uncertain and all the while the airline is standing by the flight so she can not officially tell you there’s no chance, but she herself thinks the chances are slim to none. So I observed my situation in the present; past the gate and the terminal and the airport (and technically the state, because the Cincinnati airport is actually located in Kentucky), and I have relatives in Cincinnati, really nice ones too. So after observing the situation and talking with my traveling companion we decided switching to an early morning flight was best and to call my aunt and uncle that live in town and ask if we could stay with them overnight. And they were thrilled; I have a big family so we don’t get to see each other much, so the thought of having a surprise visit isn’t seen as an inconvenience but a gift. And to make it even better it was my aunt’s birthday. So yes, it was a bummer that I missed a whole day with my brother but in return I was safe, warm, got to see some sweet relative, had an awesome home cooked meal, and slept in a comfortable bed after a hot shower.

I know not all travel rearrangements work out this well but I do think that a little shift in perspective can go a long way to making things easy. And when you are responsible for your own actions sometimes the universes gives you a little something in return.

So problem number 2: fear of death. To this I have no fantastic realization. I have no idea when my fear of flying took hold of me so strongly or why. But every time that plane takes off my head fills with dread. My over active imagination plays a hundred deadly scenarios in a quarter of a second and I am reduced to weeping sadly until the adrenaline stops coursing so fiercely through my blood and I can relax. That’s what happens nearly ever take off of every flight, and it happened on this trip too. As I pulled my head from between my knees, wiping tears from my eyes I smiled weakly at my traveling companion, “ I need to meditate more.”

Fear is a head game, it’s there because there is something to be learned, a breakthrough waiting to happen. But fear is big it feels as uncontrollable as the weather but even if I never get a hold of it I know that if I stick with my practice I can change my perspective. I can see my fear for what it is, a wild raging out of context storm wreaking havoc on my mind and there may be nothing I can do about it but I can at least look around it and see the calm waiting on the other side.