Re-visiting

I've been re-visiting B.K.S. Iyengar's Light on Yoga sequences lately. It's got me working a couple of standing poses differently. Love when this happens. You just start looking at a familiar pattern of energy in a different way and all of a sudden a new door to the pose opens.

I've been using his sequence of standing poses, in the order he suggests...just to feel why he did them in that order. I have to say my hips are feeling really good (the sequence I've been playing with was for relieving sciatica which I don't suffer from but figured it would provide some nice hip work).

Even though these are Iyengar sequences, I find my way into the poses using Erich Schiffmann's work on finding lines of energy.

I am having so much fun on the mat!

I picked up Mary Oliver's new book of poems, Red Bird, yesterday.
I found this.


"Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Talk about it."




I was sharing this with my friend Daron and as I wrote it down in my email, I realized that he does this. My friend Jeanne does this. My teacher, Erich Schiffmann does this. Writers I like do this, poets, painters, friends, my husband...this is what makes them so interesting and challenging and keeps me doing the same.

Back from "The Crib"

For the past four years I've been making an annual pilgrimage to the Ojai Yoga Crib. I've just returned from this year's "Crib" and it was excellent. If you follow the link you can check out the teachers who were participating this year. You get to pick 5 teachers to work with. This year my classes were with Jason Crandell, Diego del Sol, Kira Ryder, Cheri Clamplett and Arturo Peal, and, of course, Erich Schiffman.



The Crib began for me with Jason Crandell's class. If you read Yoga Journal you may have come across Jason's writing. iTunes also has a series of podcast classes which are really nice. Most of them are about half an hour long so nice to use for a home practice. Jason's main teacher was Rodney Yee. He's a great at getting into the mechanics of the poses. We really did a full range of postures in his class (each class is 2 1/2 hours long so there's lots of time to get to a lot of different things...or to talk a bit). It was such a nice class, so well paced, that I was surprised at the end when Jason said that he would not be hanging around to talk to people after class because he was fighting a flu bug and needed to leave to take a nap before his next class. What a hero! He did this great sequence near the end that culminated in an arm balance called Ashtavakrasana. I've never been able to quit get there and it's a challenging posture for sure. But he put it together step by step so that everyone in the room could do at least a piece of it. And he gave some nice instructions toward the very end that allowed me to actually taste the full pose for the first time. It was really fun. And I don't use the word "fun" in the neighborhood of arm balances very often!

Diego del Sol was next. All I will say here is it was a hot day, a hot room, a hot practice, and I was having hot flashes...and for those of you who know Ayurveda...I have a Pitta constitution. It wasn't pretty. The fire danger in the area was high...I'm surprised I didn't spontaneously combust and set the whole town on fire!

Saturday morning began with Kira Ryder. Kira owns Lulubandha's in Ojai and is the organizer of this event. All that and she teaches at the Crib too. Her classes are full of experiment and innovation. She uses movement, breath, sound, personal stories...whatever is in her toolbox to get you to explore. She is such a loving presence. You can check out the sequence she did on one of the blogs she uses to post class sequences. She doesn't use the 'traditional' names of postures so you may not always know quite what is being done but you'll get an idea. And if you decide to try one of her sequences, email me and I can usually explain what she's talking about...for instance...would you know what to do with "wise guy" pose?...or swamp monster? It's one of the many things that make her classes so much fun.

Saturday afternoon was spent in the compassionate embrace of Cheri Clampett and Arturo Peal in Restorative Yoga. Cheri is a yoga therapist and Arturo is a doctor of Chinese Medicine as well as a gifted yogi. Not only were we treated to the healing practice itself but they both moved through the room offering some hands on healing as well. I've work with Cheri whenever the opportunity arises. My first experience with her was in a regular hatha yoga class. Her voice and presence were so soothing that you wanted to melt simply because she asked you to!

The last class on Sunday morning was with my main teacher Erich Schiffman. Kira was there taking class too. She said about this class in her blog...."I cried. I always cry in Erich's class on the last day of the Crib. It's total medicine. I consider him my teacher but sometimes I wonder if I have heard a word he says." I know what she means. Erich has been my teacher for about 10 years. And everytime I'm with him I understand something I haven't gotten before...even if I've heard it many times. He talked a little, we meditated awhile and then did a posture practice. He said "Now, the practice we're going to do is not going to be difficult. Be on the lookout for why it's advanced. You're trusting your deepest impulses....First follow other people's words...it's advanced when it starts feeling like *yours.*A real fundamental shift happens where it feels like you're doing YOUR yoga....You'll find yourself inventing new poses, like the original yogis did. The poses didn't just arrive in some book." The last 10 minutes or so was freeform. Erich put on a live recording of Donna de Lory's He Ma Durga and we just did whatever yoga we felt like doing. The music was haunting and I know a few people got weepy at this point. The music, the place, the people, the yoga...whew...good medicine for sure.

And it wasn't all yoga all the time. There was shopping and eating and visiting. I'm still working on re-creating a salad that I loved so much I had it two days in a row at Azu. It was an arugula salad with dried figs, toasted almonds feta and crispy serrano ham. I couldn't find serrano ham so I used proscuitto, toasted until slightly crispy instead. Its always the dressing that's a challenge. I tried grapeseed oil, lemon juice, and a little salt and pepper. But its not quite right. I'm almost wondering if a tiny bit of apple juice might do the trick. I guess I could email the restaurant and see if they'd give up the recipe.

Freestylin' it...

Check out "Your Very Own Yoga", an article by yoga teacher Anne Jablonski in the August 2008 Fit Yoga Magazine. She eloquently describes the ways in which my teacher, Erich Schiffmann encourages exploration of yoga from within in order to establish a yoga and meditation practice that is truly yours. For those of you who haven't met Erich (yet), perhaps you'll understand why I have so much love and respect for him.

Freeform Yoga

Once a month, Erich Schiffmann hosts Freeform Yoga at a studio in Los Angeles. Here's a video, shot by one of his long time students, that includes his description of freeform yoga and some footage of what takes place.

Listen to the description. He's really telling you how to develop your own practice.

Erich Schiffmann on "The Big Picture"

"Far too many people get distracted by the complexities of their various techniques and lose sight of what the overall "big picture" is. Don't lose sight of the big picture. Don't lose sight of what the practices are all about. The big picture, the reason for doing yoga is...(dramatic pause)...The big reason for doing yoga is to have the experience of yoga. The reason to do yoga is to have the experience. Keep that in the forefront of your mind. Now the word "Yoga" is a really interesting word. It comes from the Sanskrit root word "Yug" which means "yoke". And what they're talking about is the small mind, personal mind, personal self...merging with, yoking with, joining with Infinity. In easy words...small mind joining with Big Mind. Once you even have a taste of that for even a split nanosecond, it wipes out your previous convictions about the way you thought things were. There's no such thing as small mind, is what you discover. There's Big Mind only, infinitely expressed."

Listen to the rest of what he head to say here
Photo at Ojai Yoga Crib by one of the cribbers.