Category: Action Plan

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Paschimottanasa – the Grand Poobah of forward bends. 

(It’s a very, very powerful posture)

Paschimottanasana is a seated forward bend with legs extended straight in front of you.  It’s best if your knees point towards the ceiling so the feet  are neither rocked in nor rocked out.  If you find that you can hardly fold at all – don’t be discouraged.  It’s very common – it’s just no one gets their picture taken if they aren’t touching their toes yet!!  Some find it helpful to bend the knees and rest the chest on the thighs.  You can also sit on the front edge of a folded blanket.

Either your standing forward bends will be easier – or your seated forward bend will be easier.  It reflects certain anatomical tensions in the neck and hips.  If the seated forward bend is stubborn and unchanging, I suggest you work a variety of  standing forward bends first to warm up for paschimottanasana.  The folklore is that  paschimottanasana is about “letting go”  whatever that means.  Let go of what?    I could write a thesis on that…but generally it meant I needed to soften my edges, releasing the fixed ideas that I had about how the world should work.  It involved letting others win disagreements, accepting discomfort, allowing change and opening to possibilities and opportunities in my life that I never would have considered.  It was about choosing ease.  For you it might mean letting go of fear and charging forward by being more active – engaging your thighs or activating your bicep muscles to pull you closer to your toes.  It’s always good to try do so the thing that doesn’t come naturally in the moment.  I feel lazy…activating my thighs (or some other part of my anatomy) may be just thing.  If I’m struggling, then more ease is called for.

The bladder meridian runs down the entire back of the body, so being balanced with water will help as well.  That might mean more water, but it also might mean less water – it’s about balance.

Experimentation is helpful here.  That is a great thing about our yoga postures – they give us data about ourselves that we can use to refine our lives. 

Most of all, like all things yoga, forward bend requires practice -so even if you don’t like it…keep practicing!!

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About the Body – Thoughts on designing sequences for personal practice

I’ve waited years to talk about this!  It’s absolute freedom to me to be honest about designing your personal yoga practice.  You see, when you teach yoga you have to learn to construct a sequence which will be manageable for the largest number of people in the demographic that you are working with.  It’s a fabulous way to learn, taking group classes.  The support is amazing and often, especially in the early stage of practice – you can go further in association with others.  There comes a time in practice though…a time when it’s really time for you to discover your own personal connection with yoga and the truth that is being uncovered in you by the practice.  This can really only be done on your own.  No one else can feel what you feel.  No one else can really understand that revelation that you have.  It all travels through our personal filters.  And what, if not the actualization of our own yoking to the sacred, to the infinite, to the wise  – are our practices about?  It’s something to celebrate when we are called to develop our personal practice.

Generally I suggest that you start out considering two approaches to designing.  The first is to get on your mat and play – and in this I encourage you work with and without music.  Music will drive you in a particular direction, but it can also obscure what is going on inside at a deeper level.  It’s a complicated topic which we’ll address in future posts.  The key at this point is to be aware that it will have an impact in your practice.  The second is to decide on a goal and then work towards it.  For this second, more structured sadhana-like way to practice yoga asana – I suggest you start by picking a few basic key postures and doing them every day.   Overall, I design my sadhana moon month by moon month, and each month I will design a full sequence for myself. I decide the minimum postures I will do on a busy day.  Each day when I get on my mat it falls somewhere in the spectrum.  I always have a posture which is key for the moon month.  I try to tie it into my spiritual theme.  I always did that for the students and yes, I do it now just for myself.  I don’t hesitate to indulge the desires I have about my body, but I always try to give them a context.  For example, I gained weight during COVID (can you believe that? Lol) and I want to change that.  So my spiritual themes are around sadhana and the discipline contained therein.  That spiritual practice supports what I need to do for my body- which right now is to practice almost everyday.  We are integrated beings and there will always be a physical and spiritual coherence in our practice if we are open to it. 

Also, in this more structured component of developing practice it’s good to decide how you want to learn to understand your body.  Some people thrive with that anatomical memorization of parts.  Eh, not me.  For me, learning about the energy body was the doorway to learning about the muscles and bones and tendons and organs.  Once you decide on your approach, there are many resources online books and workshops.  If you are serious about yoga, I highly recommend, Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar.  He has sample sequences at the end of the book which are great learning devices. 

IF YOU FORCE NOTHING YOU WILL BE 100% SAFE.  FORCE NOTHING!

Remember to bring your wisdom with you on your mat.  In my years as a teacher I’ve seen people fall out of arm balances because they were drinking before class, people pushing postures until they snap, all kinds of things.  Most recently, my last employer – probably in his early seventies, felt fat from the COVID too.  He jumped immediately into doing 200 sit ups with a 25 pound weight on his head.  I said, “I would never let one of my students do that”.  He kept doing it.  Let’s put that in the “don’t try this at home” file.  The beauty of yoga is that you can gain without pain, and that the results of everything you do are cumulative  – a sustainable practice builds sustainable gains.  Moderation, balance and consistency are better than dramatic pushes followed by collapses into nothingness because you’ve overdone it. 

It is my deepest wish that this information will be useful to you, that you will grow in your life through your practice.  Keep practicing all is coming.

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Destination Sovereignty: Ready, Set Action!

Action Plan, Timeline, Quality Assurance

If you’ve been following the yoga posts on my blog, you know that I often refer to an understanding of yoga through which we become aligned with our true nature, which is composed of divine qualities.  I think it’s important to understand that while yoga, like many spiritual systems,  can subtly slide into putting forth dogma, in my opinion, it’s not intended to be that way, even  if, maybe especially if we follow the formulas outlined in the sacred texts.  In that vein, the “divine qualities” or true nature referred to in the texts would be the highest expression of a particular quality as opposed to a reflection of moral purity.     When we begin to speak of taking actions on our dreams and visions, my experience is that it works best when coupled with an understanding of myself becoming the person who would take those action, and in order to do that, I often need to nurture my expression of particular flavors of qualities.  This week as we begin to translate our dreams into action plans  I suggest that we incorporate into our action plans and timelines the inner qualities which support our ability to draw forth that which we are creating. 

Say, for example that we want to draw in a new romantic relationship.  There are many flavors that such a relationship could manifest in.  At some times in our lives we might want passion and adventure.  At other times in our lives, sweetness and harmony.  The thing is, if I want a passionate adventurous relationship, I better be brining some passion and adventure into the relationship as well.  If I want stability, I better bring some of that in as well. If I want sweetness and harmony I better bring some of that to the table as well.  So what I do  is, I add those qualities to my action plans.  At the top of my daily action plan, I consider the actions that I plan to take, and I list the necessary qualities at the top.  If it’s a relational day, I put kindness and graciousness.  If it’s an administrative day, I put effectiveness at the top of the list and if it’s a day of teamwork, I might start my action plan with an intention to embody  collaboration.

Because co-creation is part of a yogic lifestyle, I try to express the qualities in terms of that which would be in alignment with the beautiful qualities which we all share.  So, if my vision is to become World Tennis Champion, while my first instinct is to conquer or defeat my competitors, as I reflect  on the yogic foundation, I know that will move me away from a state of yoga.  It creates division.  Instead I might say “Personal Best in very single match I play this year. “  Think about this in terms of sustainability.  I could become the World Champion through an accidental tennis blooper of some kind.  But my personal best will transform me into a champion as a person, and then I’ll have something lasting.  What’s my action then?  Practice every day, study the moves of the masters, 5 minutes a day envisioning my perfect serve and my competitor shaking my hand with glee because it was so much fun to for them to play against the highly skilled player I’d become.  I mean really, what could be a better victory than one where your opponent concedes that you played the best game!!!

The timelines to envision, are pretty classic, 10 years,5 years, 3 years, 1 year, 3 mos. 1 mos. I week, 1 day might be a general guideline. Of course you aren’t going to do all of them every day or month or even quarter – that kind of rigidity might create restriction rather than expansion.  But checking in at systematic intervals keeps the vision grounded.  One of the things I’ve learned is that magnificent visions can emerge , powerfully from tiny steps taken in alignment.  I was on a whole other career path when I discovered yoga, and I never intended to leave that path for yoga.  But I found myself spending a lot of time on my yoga mat, loving what I was doing and just wanting to do more of it.  It all emerged from there.  The other career which I charged through and sweated around, never amounted to much of anything, either internally or externally, a paycheck and some transient glimmers of accomplishment.  But the yoga became a rich and transformative life path for me.  When we are aligned with our deepest selves our thoughts visions and dreams become powerful, and it allows for a more organic unfolding, with minimal struggle. 

Action steps?

Similar to the manifestation, actions steps and time lines involve sitting and writing.  How do I envision this ten years, five years etc.  And know that my success in the ten year plan is going to be connected to my success in the one day plan and will be supported by my steadiness in my yoga practice. Some days moving off the action plan is the action plan!  Yoga develops our discernment to detect if our inspirations are divinely guided detours or laziness and fear.  If you haven’t yet started practicing yoga, you can begin just by sitting and breathing easily for 5 minutes with your eyes closed. Or you can come to take one of my classes!

Perhaps I will see you on Saturday when we will gather to review the process of co-creating and share the visions we’ve been nurturing the last few weeks.  Sharing the vision can be a powerful means of energizing our visions, and allows us to cheer each other on!  Pay what you are able and feel comfortable with. 

Please register at the link below

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcrd-qtrjIpH9z4EHsJhn1lvDoFmiAib_6h

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