Homework

1. Do one thing daily that you wouldn't normally do. Something that scares you, something unfamiliar. See if you can discern between fear & the unfamiliar.
2. Find your balance through your body. More sleep, exercise, eating differently? Notice the effects.
3. Notice where you are running interference on other's lives. Discern the difference between "help" & "support".
4. Pretend you are perfectly complete: no expectations, no criticisms, no competing. Notice how much pleasure, kindness, & patience you can allow yourself to have.
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1. I have been trying my hardest at practicing "floating" in many
different ways. Floating to high pushup from halfway lift, floating to
halfway lift from down dog.. it is an aspect of the practice that is
not only super badass when done correctly, but also involves so much
control and balance. It is my goal; it is scary and unfamiliar, and it
takes a lot of patience and practice. It is exciting to find a new
thing that you are a beginner with that will ultimately work as
another cog in the wheel of Vinyasa, but also challenging and soo
tricky.



2. I do like to socialize, and a personal challenge of mine is going
to bed after having a few drinks with friends. And though I do not
drink to get drunk these days, even a few drinks will wake me up and I
will begin talking or writing or listening to music, and all the
sudden it will be 3 am. I had a few nights like that in the last two
weeks, where I was only able to have maybe 6 hours of sleep, and the
difference between that kind of a night and a night where I can get a
full 8 hours are easy to distinguish between. Adding yoga to days
where I am well rested, and I am a much different person. I get so
many things done! And I love that feeling of boundless energy and a
restless mind.

3. This is a tricky one, because at work I am supposed to be directing
people into doing things that must be accomplished. Sometimes it is
very easy when a person is responsive and understands what I say, but
certain coworkers really push my patience to a point where I still
cannot discover how to balance being helpful, supportive, directive,
and also authoritative (as I need to be). It is a work in progress for
sure; being paid to interfere with the way people work, and to coach,
reinforce quality standards, and criticize gives me a wide grey zone
for this particular question.

4. Ahh number 4. This one is the key to happiness, I have realized, in
your conversations with people and in your conversations with your
Inner Roommate. Any negativity or jealousy or sadness or loneliness
that can get to bothering you deep enough that your inner roommate
puts that track on repeat for the whole day will show itself to
everything you interact with. I feel blessed that my Inner Roommate is
something my family has found an easy way to control. Ive just
realized it recently, but it has been an integral part of my
upbringing that has now revealed itself to be a kind of "happiness
control", a way to immediately interact with your Roommate in a fun
way:

Teach your inner roommate to sing. My family has always taken random
songs and added new words to them. Usually it is out of silliness,
while cooking or doing the dishes. A word will remind you of a melody,
and all the sudden you are singing. And when your roommate is singing,
he doesn't have much time to think about anything else. Its like yoga
for him. Now if only I could buy him a pair of headphones and an
iPod so he could listen to Beethoven all the time...

Philip Urso

Hey guys, this post is especially for my fellow Teacher Trainees at Edge Power Yoga: I have seen that a lot of you have very busy schedules, and we are having a hard time to coordinate our get togethers for practice. I want to let you busy folks know about Philip Urso's podcast, in particular the class at the top of this list, which is a really neat exercise. It is a 45 minute "dynamic vinyasa class" with Philip leading the flow, and the last 35 minutes are a yogic sleep exercise called Yoga Nidra. 35 minutes may be a little daunting, so you could also check out the 35th class on that list, titled What is Hard and What is Easy? It is a regular class that ends with about 15 minutes of Yoga Nidra, and it is a really nice transition from the flow you are accustomed to, into basically an extended, meditative shavasana. I also recommend checking out these classes because they are soo awesome; just get out your mat and either listen through a stereo or upload it to an iPod and listen through headphones, wear some layers so you get sweaty, and enjoy. He is such a great teacher, and after taking a few you will be SO EXCITED that he is going to be joining us at teacher training in March. Talk to you soon!

-namaste

1/11/12

"I expand in abundance, success, and love every day
as I inspire those around me to do the same"

Teacher Training Journal: Day 1 and 2

I was going to write up a nice post about my experiences with the first 13 hours of my 200 hour teacher training through Edge Power Yoga: I was going to put down some nice thoughts about what we are learning, and how Fran has been breaking down the Sun A and Sun B for us, taking us through correcting our postures, internalizing their flow, knowing that less is more as a teacher directing students, and getting in plenty of time in front of our class of trainees to get valuable hands on teaching experience.

I was going to try to get into detail about these experiences. But I am so pooped now, and I am looking forward to my bed. But I will sleep well knowing that by 8am again tomorrow, I will be back at it, in the company of all the great people I have been learning and laughing with. Instead, I will just post two quotes. One from the Yamas and Niyamas, and another from The Untethered Soul:

"..how we treat ourselves is in truth how we treat those around us. If you are a taskmaster with yourself, others will feel your whip. If you are critical of yourself, others will feel your high expectations of themselves as well. If you are light hearted and forgiving with yourself, others will feel the ease and joy of being with you. If you find laughter and delight in yourself, others will be healed in your presence."

(Concerning your inner monologue): "Come to know the one who watches the voice, and you will come to know one of the great mysteries of creation."

1/1/2012

"Distraction Precedes Discontent"

The other day I was thinking about a few quotes i had written down on my whiteboard a few months ago. One, below this post, was from the head coach of the Boston Celtics; another was a mantra Haruki Murakami used in his autobiography about his life in marathon running, "Pain is inevitable; Suffering is optional." As a yoga student, i began to think about how they applied to a vinyasa practice:

"That which angers you, controls you" is a succinct way of saying how your state of mind in any given situation will then determine your emotions, and anger is such a focused emotion that it often takes control of your entire presence. To move beyond anger means to have a clear head, understanding exactly what you are dealing with and being able to manage your discomforts;

"Pain is inevitable; Suffering is optional" works as a wonderful mantra for a yoga workout because it lets you reaffirm that decision with yourself at every repetition.

I came up with "Distraction precedes discontent" in the middle of a podcast class while thinking about those quotes, and thought that the initial distraction from a pose in a yoga class is the key part of you inner monologue you need to learn to recognize, and then immediately squash. Once that voice gets going he is impossible to shut up, and all the sudden he is controlling your breathing, complaining about how sore your legs are from yesterdays class, and that you should do a quick childs pose and drink some water. Your legs can handle a deeper extension in Dancer, but the second that voice goes "ow" and you say "i know, right?" back at him, the party is over.

-namaste

12/11/2011

"That which angers you, controls you."
-doc rivers

Beginners Mind

Hello friends. This is the first official entry in High Stakes Headstands, my personal Yoga blog. A brief message on the origin of my blogs title: after a particularly challenging day centered around inversions and arm balances, i had a dream about the imaginary game of High Stakes Headstands, where someone would be performing a headstand in a room, surrounded by expensive vases, each having been bet upon as to which would be smashed first. It basically boiled down to my mind showing me a silly take on my fear of destroying things in my room when falling out of a headstand.

Well, I am dave. Instead of starting here with a static introduction, I want to dive right into the 7 hours i spent with Philip Urso today.

First and foremost, I was lucky enough to make it to the class and to meet Philip. I have taken all 50 of the classes he has posted on his iTunes store podcast, but until today I had never met him; his podcast is a wonderful resource for not only the practiced Yogi, but also the beginner (as I was when I started his classes) who is still figuring out exactly how to fit yoga into their lifestyle. Sometimes classes at your studio don't exactly line up with your life, but Philips podcasts are a wealth of training by a very present teacher available to you at any hour.

I know that sounds like an advertisement (which it is), but I learned something today from being with him in person: as he said in our bootcamp, the most appreciated and progressive kind of teacher is the one who does not follow a script. The teacher surveys every aspect of a yoga class and changes the focus of progress to meet the needs of their students. Teachers like Philip can utilize the weaknesses in a newer Yogi and use that instructional path to not only give better awareness to the less experienced, but also challenge a practiced Yogi with the disciplines of simplicity. As it turned out, I was in a class consisting of 80% yoga teachers and other well practiced students, so Philip accommodated to our needs and we got ourselves a proper ass-whooping (in the very best sense).
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Moving on: After I returned home from my yoga marathon with Mr. Urso, I was thinking about how a fellow boot-campee mentioned that she was most present when in the company of her dogs; with her dogs as the focal point of a situation, she felt she was the most in tune with nature and with her Beginners Mind. Stepping into my home, I dropped my bags and was immediately greeted by an Old English Bulldog named Bella (pictured above) who was very happy to see me. I noticed her breathing almost instantly: for whatever reason, the shins of my pants were especially fragrant, and Bella was sniffing away at them. Soon she settled down, and I sat with her and pet her for a while. Her breathing then completely changed; she had relaxed, had gotten over the initial curiosity her mind had given her in the foreign smells on my pant legs, and was now breathing quite deeply. She was enjoying being petted, and her mind was completely invested in the relaxing sensations of a nice backrub.

While giving her this backrub, I realized I had come into harmony with Bellas mind-state, and compared her state of total presence to the way I personally invest myself in the many different situations I face in my day to day life: A human can have a cat on their lap, petting her with one hand while being completely absorbed in the text messages on their iPhone at the exact same time. I did this myself later in the evening, with a cat in my own lap while I uploaded some pictures to my computer. My cat was totally present in how I interacted with her; I was multitasking, going through the petting motions with her as my mind was focused on completely different things.

This came to me as a metaphor for how you treat the many challenging poses you are given in a yoga class, as well as how you treat the different interactions that happen to you in your life: if you give your all to a situation (ie: a cat in your lap; a particularly long hold in Crescent Lunge), you will benefit so much more from your interactions with it. All the sudden, your "cat" wants you to rub underneath its chin, or it'll roll on its belly and let you know "you sure haven't scratched this spot in a while". In Beginners Mind, in the animal mind, you first search out relaxation, comfort and stability, but then find your way to progress, to scratching those itches that have been out of reach until now.

Right now.

-namaste