What A Yogi Eats (this morning.)

A Yogi's Breakfast

Homemade Granola: recipe
Homemade Vanilla Maple Yogurt: recipe
Raspberry Topping: frozen from our garden this summer, thawed and mixed with a little vanilla and honey.

Good morning yum!

Yoga Teacher Juggling Lesson

When teaching a yoga class your single pointed focus is, of course, the class; however the class is only the sum of many different parts. A yoga teacher must juggle many different variables to ensure her students have a good time on their mat. Here are a few things that I try to keep my eye on when teaching a class.

First: me. Who has ever had a day when they just didn’t want to go to work? Or felt just ill enough to consider calling in sick? Or had maybe a little too much fun the night before? I think we all have, being a yoga teacher is no different. No matter how much we love our jobs sometimes it’s just hard to get there. And like with many other jobs when you are a yoga teacher people depend on you and look to you as an example. You may feel like death warmed over but to your students you need to show none of it, you may be just not in your groove when that student (yes, you know which one, that one) walks in and you have to suck it up and make them welcome. Because really, you know it’s that student that needs yoga the most. And as much as yoga tells us that we should love our bodies no matter what you still have to help that body look like you belong in front of people. I’m not saying you have to buy $80 pairs of organic wicking cotton yoga pants (virtually all of my yoga clothes came from Goodwill) but you need to look like you didn’t just roll out of bed or worse out of the bar (by the way my studio is located right next door to the local bar). Just wear clothes that fit, especially if you do a lot of demonstrating in your class, brush your hair, and speaking of hair it is a personal pet peeve of mine when yoga teachers let their hair cover their face and shoulders while teaching. I for one connect with people by looking them in the eyes and if you want me to keep my arms plugged in show me what that looks like. Ok mini-rant over. And if you are a little sick or didn’t sleep well, it’s ok that that shows, but toss some cold water of you face before students get there or even a little, dare I say it, make up to soften the redness around the eyes. No matter how humble you are your students are going to look to you for and at you as an example you don’t have to meet those expectations but they’ll appreciate the effort.

Next: climate. Ok anyone who has been to my studio knows that it is climatologically challenged. Seriously! But I make it work, or at least keep it with the margin of forgivable error. And things that annoy the crap out of me like the sound of a the furnace blasting (yes blasting!) or the constant hum of an air conditioner, students will forgive because if they are too hot, they will lose energy on focus before class is over and if it’s to cold they will have to layer up to Nordic degrees to keep from shaking their asanas. Or worse their muscle won’t heat up properly which puts them at a great risk of injury. I worry about this but I try to keep an eye on my students’ body and layers and adjust accordingly. It’s not perfect but they stay comfortable.

Third: body language. This is as important as alignment in my opinion. Watching a group of students as a group rather than individuals, you’ll always have the yogi maven who plugs extra chaturangas and core work in just like you will always have a yogi who is 3 sun salutes in before hitting balasana. But if you notice that over all chaturangas are getting a little sloppy, or skipped all together or Navasana legs are slipping down then maybe the class is getting tired; and really how important is that third really cool arm balance you had planned. I’ve had classes were I demonstrated an arm balance and literally every student just sat there before doing something else or going right to child’s pose. Not fun for a teacher! So tone it down maybe or give them an extra few minutes in Savasana. On the other side of the coin if you notice students fidgeting in poses or a general glaze of bordem over their faces you may want to step up your game. One of the very first things I learned out there was to have a class plan you are completely prepared to scrap on the fly. You never know where the energy of the collective group will take you.

Lastly: music. I adore a well structured yoga mix! However not as many teachers take the John Cusack, High Fidelity, neurotic stance on building playlists as I do. Fine, to each his musical own. But let me just express (since this is my blogger and I’ll rant if want to-sung to…ok really you should get that reference) few things I feel all yoga teachers to take into acoustic account. The “random” button is unacceptable. I can no longer even count the times I’ve been in a yoga class where the energy was waning, starting either too cool down our practice or doing some inner awareness exercise when some crazy dance mix, or insane sitar leapt out of the speakers and poo pooed all over my groove. I for one am also a fan of mixing genres, I’ll throw a little Bob Marley, Sigur Rois, Lucinda Williams, or any other artist I like onto a mix but like with all yoga I do it mindfully. Using songs with lyrics is tricky, I’ve had students break down because a certain song came on, I myself have gritted my teeth though certain ones I’ve heard. So my advice is to stick to a theme and leave all “romantics” off. You can rock a “jammin’” flow with some reggae, and Caribbean sounds, or a blue grassy flow with some banjos and folksters. Or maybe even find some dare I say, uplifting songs by people you wouldn’t classify as yogis to spice up a mix. But keep it simple, keep it flowing and try as hard as you can to have the music match the pace and vibe of your class. If you should find yourself having technical difficulties try to keep music corrections covert or admit to your students you music has gone AWOL and practice in silence. Some people can ignore back ground music, I can’t, so what and how I rock my classes i take very seriously and I have had more than a handful of students ask me to burn them some of my playlist because they enjoy them so much.

So those are just a few of the things a teacher needs to keep in mind while here are as many as 20 sets of eyes upon her. We can’t nail all of them every time but a little effort goes a long way. And we find, just like in our practice, our very own teaching style and groove which morphs over time and circumstance. But again, just like in our practice sticking to the main principles of the discipline can lead to remarkable results.

light and kindness

“No matter what the weather is, we always have a will to live.”

~Kaaleeraq Mathaeussen, Inuit fisherman

Although his livelihood and that of his Inuit community is changing, the film shows their spirit remains rooted in kindness and of possibility.

Guest blog from On Being.

Early Morning Mini Rant

First watch this:

Now if you are interested there are hundreds of places that this video is being talked about, mostly poo-pooing it for its “sexiness”. But this is my rant and here is what I am thinking right now.

I don’t mind the yoga itself, the asana rather. It’s beautiful and if you look at the woman’s face you can tell she’s is enjoying her practice. I sort of don’t even mind the half naked guy in the background because I myself have snuck out of a warm companion’s bed to sneak in a few sun salutes, though my pjs were less flattering. And really what dedicated yogi hasn’t being stunned by a beautiful view atop a lookout, who hasn’t done a few down dogs or Natarajasanas to celebrate and appreciate the beauty, or been sleeping peacefully in a lovers arms and woken up in that sweet glow of love and felt your heart so open that the only thing that makes any sense is to do a little yoga to give thanks. so as far as yoga as a form of celebration and gratitude I’m all for that.

What I’m not all for is that yoga is supposed to make us love our bodies and this video seems too fall right into that ‘sexy sells’ world of advertising that young girls and women get bombarded with, from all angles every day. If you’re not this skinny then you need to get to the gym, or the yoga mat?! Ladies let me be the first to say, yoga will NOT make you look like that? Yoga will take the body you bring it and make it healthier, stronger, less prone to injuries and leaner but it will not make you look like that black lace clad woman. (side note: my underwear never stay that well behaved during yoga class, there was double sided tape involved there for certain!)

I think Equinox is trying to play both sides of a double sided coin. If you are a practicing yogi you might see this video and think see a beautiful display of yoga. Graceful, powerful and peaceful. I for loved that after each crazy arm balance she rested in child’s pose as a way to refocus and return to the breath, a concept I teach in my classes. And it does illustrate the strength and control yoga can give us. But the other side of his coin is very dangerous. It play right to our insecurities, it dangles in front of us almost unobtainable things, luringly and provocatively so we begin to think “so this is what yoga is.”

Well it’s not. I’ve been practicing for almost 10 years now, I’m naturally skinny and strong and I will never be able to do those things. What yoga really is, is the knowledge, compassion and acceptance of my body just as it is right where I am in my practice. Should yoga only be done in organic cotton free flowing “yoga” clothes, not necessarily, should it be done in lacey underware, if that works for you, is yoga wild arm balances and gravity defying transitions, it can be, is yoga one down dog a day with good intention and mindfulness, you bet. Like I said double edged sword. So watch the video, think about your yoga and decide for yourself. Like I said these are just some thoughts I’m having this morning so to wrap up, I think the video is beautiful, I think my own practice is beautiful, I thin kid rather were my thrift store workout wear but I might look into some cute black undies for a special occasion.

Namaste.

Yogi Questions Answered; Cobra vs. Up Dog

Yogi question: What is the difference between Cobra (bhujangasana) and Up Dog (adho mukha svanasana)?

Om Y'all Yoga's best answer:

studio article

second star studio's feature in the local area paper:

the power of photgraphs

Maybe I’m just sensitive these days but when I was scrolling through buzzfeed’s list of the 45 most powerful images I got to this image and burst into tears.


Christians protect Muslims during prayer in Cairo, Egypt.

See the thing is I’m not a big fan of religion, in fact one of my favorite sayings is “God looked down on His people and said ‘as a gift to my people, who I love so much, I will give them the gift of religion.’ To which the Devil spoke up and said ‘ooooh, and I’ll organize it.’” I am sure many people who, like me, were raised Catholic can say they took away to major things from that religion; the ritual and the harshness. I’m not even sure why I feel a sense of severity because I was so young when I was involved with the Church, but it’s there. Hell (I mean…heck), for a long time I had a hard enough time dealing with the idea of monotheism and the word God itself. But I wanted it!

For whatever reason, my Catholic upbringing or just my DNA, I struggled for a long time with faith, or rather my lack of faith. I wanted with the entirety of my being to have faith in something, anything! But nothing ever felt right, there was always too much dogma or worse too much wooing- the places you go to that are so obviously trying to appeal to the people and not even trying to promote ‘the good word.’ And speaking of the good word, that’s another reason I was seeking religion, because wanted to be a student. I wanted a wiser more learned individual posing thought provoking questions to me about love and compassion and maybe even a good moral tale thrown in every now and again for amusement.

And then I got into yoga, like really got into yoga, in fact this was a few years after I went to yoga school. I realized through some reading of ancient and modern texts that there was less of an emphasis on NAMING a god as there was to BEING FAITHFUL to a god. The teachings and practices of yoga seemed (to me at least) to align themselves with nearly every faith I had looked at or too for guidance. And for the very first time in my life I felt ok being a spiritual being and not necessarily a religious one. I even started using the word God again (by the way that’s bigger than it relates in this blog) and I didn’t worry or feel inauthentic about not being able to name that God.

So why this picture, why is this the 1 of the 45 most powerful images of 2011 that brought me to tears? I think it’s because this image relates the one thing throughout all of my religious struggle I never really stopped believing in and that is spirit. Whether it’s the human spirit or the Holy Spirit or the spirit of freedom and solidarity, I just knew on some level there was something out there bigger than me, bigger than all of us. So too see people standing together displaying what for so long I had no words for, it profoundly impacted me. People who proudly proclaim a religion, one set in its beliefs that it is the way, joining hands to protect others who proudly proclaim a different religion from their own. It should make you cry, it should resound across the borders (external, internal or otherwise) and shake the foundation of all those who commit terror in the name of faith. It is the people joined together in spirit that is religion and that is more beautiful than a thousand churches and more powerful than a thousand bombs and summed up quit poetically in this, one of the most powerful images of 2011. Enjoy and may the Spirit be with you…

…(this is where the Catholics say, “and also with you.)

J