Shavasana

On request, photo's of "what it looks like where (I'm) from"

Shavasana (corpse pose) is the closing asana. When my first instructor coached, "Shavasana can be the most difficult pose.", I saw this as an attempt at dramatic irony to keep a room full of students from fidgeting noisily. As a yogi comes into a deeper understanding of what it means to bring intention to every asana, lying still and relaxed presents the most unique challenges as the personal definition of "still and relaxed" evolves.

Yoga's cool down routine is an experimental space for a still body to single out the subtle sources of its relaxation. We channel the mindfulness established in the previous work out, and find we are better able to recognize our thought patterns, helpful and harmful to priceless rest and recovery. The fact that this power is surprising to most new students is one of the reasons why there is so much work to be done.

Since there is a loose a association with resting---bed... You're welcome.

When first assuming what has become my favorite posture, I would often receive a very welcome adjustment. Instructors pressed my shoulders down to the mat, exposing and releasing tension though my chest- tension I knew was loosely tied to a detested self-conscious posture. After two years of practicing almost everyday, I have better posture and a more compassionate view of my body.

Undergrad identified my misalignment as a result of repetitive overreactions and internalization of challenges. I feel scared often and find social situations most difficult, the body responds to this attitude by assuming a fetal position for protection. This acceptance has not destroyed my life, but yoked me with the ability and therefore responsibility to do something about it with the tools earned in teacher training. That something is strengthening my back and stretching the muscles in my chest; It's a work in progress but my recoil reflex is weakening along with neck pain, tension headache, and shortness of breath.

By the end of 500 hour training I sprawled like a starfish, an unconscious grin spreading. I have missed this time while teaching. It can be very difficult to follow my own advice or find the place so highly valued. Preoccupation with every fidget taken as a sign of disappointed students who will never try yoga again.

The mind's habit of projecting itself into past or future situations is the biggest threat to mindfulness in modern culture, and the source of most young adult pain. We waste mental power best applied within our physical limits making use of current resources, as our ego runs wild through tired fantasies or nightmares, robbing us of our time, focus, and health.

The perfect body is an image modern humans can not hope to escape, with it's predictable and rare proportions. Mental powers are just has highly sought and exploited. In subculture this capacity is almost always elevated to it's own form of idolatry. I have an enormous problem accepting intellectual ability as a surrogate for physical condition or visa versa, because I have come to see them as inseparable.

This dualistic inside/outside model of "who we are" is a commercial oversimplification which is dangerous to the ideals both claim to exclusively represent. In our stronger moments we devote all of our energy in one direction only to encounter inexplicable delay or injury. In weaker moments we dismiss our neglect.

This holiday season, I find myself in a resting state off the mat. Between full time jobs, training complete, open arms of family during the holidays lessening the immediate financial burden and professional obligation, I have time to reflect on my own mental short-cuts from a place of rest, a place I have never taken advantage of before. (...okay... after spending the first two days of unexpected leave frantically pecking out applications and lying curled in a ball.)

My M.O. dictates that this is a time to close the gaps between the person I was and should be by now while worrying about uncertainties of the future. Because of this pattern, I have missed much of the person I was, and the relationships I was blessed with awaiting opportunities to promote own desperate and fickle agenda or check my phone for correspondence from people who weren't there. I wish I had known that girl better, and taken better care of her body. I wish I had been kinder to the ones that were helping her along the way, dismissing those who lacked interest.

I encourage any of you going through a similar time in your life, where you seem compelled by your well of energy yet unable to accept the worth of your contribution, to take advantage of the holiday season as a "shavasana". Bring awareness to habitual treatment and responses to those more permanent fixtures in your life. See the socially accepted time away from work for what it is, something to celebrate not an edge to take advantage of. Learn something about yourself you can bring back to work and worship, LATER.

 

"When I am afraid I put my trust in you.

In God whose word I praise.

In God I trust; I shall not be afraid.

What can flesh do to me?"      

Psalm 56:3-4  

Fire and Knives

Seven Mile Latte (Stumptown Hairbender)

I was diagnosed with Dyshindrotic Eczema this week. The first outbreak started during 500hr training. By the time I saw the dermatologist, my right hand was transforming into hamburger meat at an alarming rate. In hindsight, an outbreak of something should have came as no surprise. I'd spent months torturing my hands, alternating them carelessly between humid conditions in the hot yoga studio, a coating of drying magnesium powder for climbs, and the hot water bath tending bar.

Vegan Blueberry Pancakes and Strawberry Nutella Waffle

I was a little shocked that I wouldn't be making coffee anymore, a skill I have come to take some pride in. I would also be leaving a job I have had for over a year, but the blow was softened considerably the next day. Healthy new skin revealed itself beneath incapacitating blisters that had been the bane of my-- and anyone-around-me's-- existence.

I learned a ton in my year at Seven Mile Café. I have never worked as part of a team with a more cooperative backbone. That isn't to say there aren't quirks, but in general everyone does their best to embrace strengths and excuse weaknesses as the business that unites and empowers them grows.

In high-pressure situations, and a busy restaurant can feel as compelling as a code blue, frustration, unforeseen challenges, and miscommunication abound, but the owners and management of this team have an innate and unrivalled ability to motivate and maintain high expectations in the face of what an outside-observer could only describe as chaos. It's not mysterious to me where this power comes from.



10,000th shot pulled

I have never worked in a business where the owner was present everyday. I have never worked in a business where its owners and their managers worked just as hard on the front lines as their employees... every... day. Kevin and Jose's engaged presence has allows them to make responsible innovations and form relevant assumptions about a very diverse pool of team members.

The unique environment they have created by striving to improve themselves makes it impossible for those who do not adopt the same dedication and critical thinking skills to stick. The hostess-in-training who lasted an hour before forfeiting, "I can't do this." comes to mind.



Seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte

I hope to own my own business sooner or later, and when I do, I will remember Seven Mile Cafe. I will remember the sacrifices, investments, and adjustments. I will remember the loyalty and community these people attracted by being remarkably themselves. I will remember the passion for food and attachment to quality of product whether a poached egg or shot of espresso. I will remember, most of all, the focus and willingness to forgive in the midst of passion, fire, knives, and Sunday rushes.

Hope you had a good one today.

Artist: Abby Buford, Manager of Seven Mile Highland Village

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." -Proverbs 27:17        

Bivy

A week after completion of 200 hour training, some coworkers invited me to climb with them. The solitude, ties to nature, and riddles were a nice new way to expend the extra energy yoga tapped into. It didn't hurt that climbers are some of the best people on earth. Their openness, drive, and individuality is unrivalled.

Teaching for Summit Climbing Gyms is a highlight of my week. Only two climbers braved the first frozen morning for an hour of spine stabilizing in a noon Climber Power Flow. The cold, recent change of class title, and plans for the afternoon motivated me to generate more heat than usual.

By one-thirty I was climbing again. It wasn't my first time on a route since graduation, but it was the first day I lasted more than half an hour, holding back in order to avoid the frustration of new limits. There is this ridiculousness of new strength and control gained in Sunstone's Earth, Fire, and Wood series meeting not so distant memories of being... well, better at getting up a wall.

I've committed a lot of thought and verbiage to exploring how participation in yoga has effected me, so today I took time to think about climbing. Below are five ways climbing has yoked my body and mind.

1. Gravity.

Yogi feet are wide with lifted arches. The lifted arch optimized engagement through the ankle, calf, and eventually knee, leg, and hip. In most challenges to balance in yoga, advancement comes from muscular control of the leg directed by the sensitivity of the bare foot.

In climbing, the foot and shoe are inseparable. In order to stay on the wall, you must learn how to maximize the shoe-foot as a wedge. Inflexible, extremely tight, arched and pointed, shoes are a source of great use and great discomfort. Body weight pivots on interactions between various holds, chalky fingers, and small segments of rubber.

The operating instructions given by fellow climbers from twenty feet bellow can be as enlightening as adjustments given by even the best yoga instructors, and the basic themes of resisting gravity apply- mainly trusting your natural potential to subconsciously apply the universal laws of physics.

2. You can't embody a rock.

Experienced yogis have internalized optimal alignments to some degree. There is a limit to the instructions that can be shared because our bodies are different and some of the most important movements are virtually undetectable. Mastery comes from an appropriate level of a personal acceptance, and proportional discipline and patience.

In a climbing gym, a route has a definite goal, and the holds one must use on the way up are the same for every climber. There are opportunities for creativity, but accepting a hold as outside of your grasp for now isn't always a gratifying epiphany. Unfinished routes loom in the back of your mind and can be a source of much shit-talking.

3. The ground is far away.

One of my favorite yoga encouragements is a version of, "If you fall out it's no big deal. Get back in." In climbing... not so much. If you're using equipment properly, a fall will not kill you, but the possibility is still alive in my lizard brain. Watching more experienced climbers, it becomes clear that one gets over this, but failing to finish a route and having to come ALL THE WAY DOWN totally sucks- especially when you have exhausted yourself.

There is little reason to believe any other possibilities exist until you determine to find the edge. In yoga and climbing, this edge is often a tipping point or limit to range of conscious motion. You have that control or you don't. Once you understand and accept that reality and fully embrace the challenges unhindered by the fear of disappointment, the human body will never cease to remind you that it is capable of more than expected.

4. Momentum.

Sunstone does an especially good job of incorporating dynamic movement into the static nature of Asana, but generally yoga uses poses as a framework for strength building through alternating and maintaining contraction. At my highest levels of performance, I become so focused on the muscular interplay and breath within stillness, that I forget sequence entirely. Sometimes this happens when I demo for students, and can be awkward to shake off.

On the wall, inertia from the last move is your friend. Resting occasionally is fine, but it puts stress on grip- a limiting factor for a new climber. Ideally you know the direction you're headed, even if its not certain how it will ever come together. Your best bet is to go for it- past it- and brace yourself for rough contact on the backswing while lizard-neurons scream, "It's a trick! The route setters are trying to kill you!"

5. Summit.

Yogis can practice all day, every day. We bring awareness and discipline to posture and the breath while standing, lifting, walking, and even driving. We strive to bring engagement and stillness into every task and interaction. Climber's high requires something to well... climb. Since imparting on my new hobby, I can admit to sizing up trees, walls, and dumpsters that never held much significance before.
"I think I could climb that..."
Get enough like minded people together, and things could get dangerous.
"You definitely could."

Always encouraging are more experienced climbers.
"That's how it is. You back off for more then a week, and you feel like it's your first time. Work for it. You'll get back."
"This same thing happened to a friend of mine. More strength... just don't know how to use it yet."
"You can't climb the same way you did before training. YOU are not the same."

I can agree that I'm not the same person I was before training. There are the expected increases in physical strength, but exposure to the possibility and diversity of life over this short time period has been more empowering and transformative than practice alone. Energy not strangled by fear and self-doubt escapes in the form of joy shared with others, and the returns are generous. The currency of life is no longer self-preservation, but desire to participate and explore. 

The heart of a yogi seeks humility in the mundane; the heart of a climber craves the experiences that humble. Yoga enhances my relationship with the ever-present infinite within myself and others, and now climbing has stirred an attraction to the astonishing and ever illusive views from the top. My adventures in both continually remind me to value acceptance and embrace the liberation of impermanence. There ARE impossibilities, but only God knows what they are.

"If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied."

1 Corinthians 15:19



Wood

Wood is Sunstone's resistance stretching class. In my favorite class, we increase flexibility and range of motion in our bodies by strengthening weak areas.

Wood class is confusing to get into. First of all, it's not pretty. The expansive Dancing Shiva and Standing Bow are replaced by the carnivorous Strong Warrior Spine Twist. A room full of arched backs and bent knees and elbows are reflected back at the full expression of each pose. An instructor reminds us to return to moderate effort when we feel our more experienced muscle groups taking up the slack or when our bodies no longer resemble gargoyles. This result is an hour of muscle confusion and psychological disorientation.

I had rocky relationships with my joints before my first round of training. Health care and the service industries are filled with knee-lockers like myself. We found a sweet spot long ago where our bones stack on top of each other and leave our standing support to the quads and a few unfortunate tendons and ligaments. These tissues were screaming after two days of lunging Warriors and squatting Awkwards. Wednesday of week one was my first Wood. Thursday morning I stepped out of bed as I had since Monday, bracing for painful impact. When I stood on both legs without pain, my understanding of my body and maybe even my life had changed.

When we show up for life we have opportunities to break patterns everyday. The patterns we have the hardest time parting with are usually the ones that are most convenient, but not necessarily the most beneficial. We each have manifested clear definitions of strengths that we like to use to threaten to our weaknesses into hiding. 

Popular fitness emphasizes the six pack abdominals, the biceps, the triceps, pectorals, and the gluteus to the virtual exclusion of their synergists or even the reciprocity between them. In dominant culture we emphasize our prime moves to the exclusion of all else. Sex appeal and money are agonists that we return to again and again to avoid the challenges that aren't always pretty, the cues that are unclear, and the effects that are inconceivable.

Wood immediately conjures the words strength and stability, but there is more to this form. A tree is still, but its composition is incredibly versatile. Irrevocably tied to the earth and fire, trees are a constant reminder of the unpredictable dynamics of growth in this strange world of ours.

Your spirit has uses and expressions that you can not imagine. This is not an empty promise or encouragement set sometime in the irrefutable future, this is right now. Every person contributes the full expression of humanity whether the role is prime mover, synergist, or antagonist. Weaknesses are not enemies, and opposition is part of the journey to true strength.

A special thanks to my sweet Eagles and teachers for moving with me.

 

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18