Power Yoga

"Can you add some more challenging poses into the class?" This was a request from one of my private classes, a mixed level group that met for an hour weekly, with a primary goal of stretching and restoration after a busy work day.

Now, this is always an interesting question for me for many reasons, but what I've been focused on this week is, what makes a challenging pose? Obviously (or maybe not?) we're talking about yoga poses here. And I guess what I find so interesting about the question is that we all think we know what that means–after all, how else do you determine if you're in yoga level 1, 2, or 3? And how else would I know what they were asking for?–but is it really possible to answer that question in a general way?

On a purely physical level, most people are predisposed, either by body type and natural talents or by other activities they do, to ease in some poses and challenge in others in a way that can't be generalized. On a different level, many people find savasana, corpse pose, challenging because they find it hard to be still, relax and let go of their thoughts.

But there's also something else going on here. Nowhere is it more true than in a yoga class that you are creating your own experience and then observing yourself in that experience. It can be argued that that's really the whole point of yoga. You are giving yourself something to do which engages you completely–body, mind, emotions, breath and energy–in order to allow your inner witness to observe the truth of your being. So, if a class isn't challenging, what does that actually mean? Are you engaging everything you can in each pose? Do you want something physically difficult given to you so that the work of the pose quiets your mind? What would you need to give yourself permission to challenge yourself? Does the challenge need to come from outside yourself?

There's also a question of how you approach the pose. If Tadasana, the mountain, is just like standing at the bus stop thinking about what you'll have for lunch then it won't engage you. However, there are thousands of potential focal points in Tadasana if you look for them. This is true for every pose...including standing at the bus stop!

Some poses will awaken an emotional response unrelated to the physical difficulty of the pose. A pose which feels restful and soothing to one person, will feel stressful and difficult to another. A challenging pose can feel frustrating or hilarious depending on what it awakens in you. For me, Pigeon used to be a horribly stressful pose even though I knew many people who found it deeply relaxing. On the other hand, I can't even come close to Tortoise, but I've often used it as a focus pose for my practice because it's entertaining for me to struggle with it. In one situation, the struggle is stressful; in the other, the struggle is funny–the only real difference is how I'm perceiving it.

Maybe a challenging practice would be to do only easy poses, but do them fully. Or maybe it would be to do only difficult poses, but release attachment to outcome. Maybe it would be to dare to come into class and do only Savasana for the whole class, while everyone around you is bending and twisting. Maybe it would be to just breathe.

In my dream, this is what Power Yoga would be. Not a fast-paced aerobic workout, but a place to claim and explore your own power, and your own experience to create exactly as you need it to be.

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Are we there yet?

Something the other day sent me down memory road, visiting times I've been badly lost, and thinking about what it means to define myself in those terms. It's hard to pick just one time when I felt lost, alone and frightened. It's happened so many times...

There was the time when I had just moved to Edinburgh as a new University student. I took a tour of the college campus, chatted on the tour with a couple of new buddies, and, when they decided to bow out of the tour to stop at a pub, I went with them. We had a quick bite together, they went off their way and I went mine. Only, which way was mine? I had no idea and no map.

Or the time I wandered happily in Venice, finding my way easily through the little alleys and canals until it was time to head back to the train station. Now it was dark, the fog settled in, and the map that had seemed quaint because it was so badly wrong now led me completely astray.

Or the time I took a tai chi class in the depths of winter in Massachusetts. The class was a bus ride away and it was easy enough to get there coming from in town. But class ended in the darkness of night, I wasn't yet a savvy bus rider and didn't really know the schedule or where I had to stand to catch the bus. I had a few nights of either watching my bus glide right past me (because I stood in the wrong place) or missing it entirely and being faced with the decision of either standing out in the snow for an hour or so and hoping for the best or trying to find my way home in the dark and cold.

Or the many, many times I've walked into a building from one direction, walked out in another without realizing it, and have strode off confidently in completely the wrong direction, realizing it only when I'm hopelessly lost, or so off track as to be almost the same thing.

Sometimes I wasn't alone, like the time a friend's father was driving me home from her house and I just blanked on what street we were supposed to take. After half an hour of driving around, he took me back to my friend's house to call my parents and ask directions. Then I didn't feel so much frightened as stupid.

But still frightened a little because I knew even as a child this failing of mine didn't seem to bode well for my ability to survive. For a while, out of fear, I tried to reclaim my weakness as a strength. I boasted of being able to be lost within a block of my house, and challenged anyone to get a solid set of directions out of me. I actually worked at having less of a sense of direction.

Over time, I've learned two things: One, getting lost has never killed me, and it has always felt worse than it actually is. The thing is, whether you're lost or not the only thing to do is the next thing...and then the next thing...and then the next thing, and unless you're dead there's always a next thing to do. If you're lost, you just tend to have bad feelings about it. And two, everyone gets lost. And if you've been lost, truly or metaphorically, you now have the experience which allows you compassion towards all those who are lost.

I recently read a description of what it's like to walk a labyrinth (a labyrinth being a maze with only one path in and out, so there's no getting lost). The author described the feeling of seeing the center in sight as she walked along, then suddenly feeling the path turn under her and send her back out away from the center. In order to keep her equanimity she had to drop her focus on getting to the center and just walk the path as it was laid out. And, of course, she eventually found herself in the center anyway. Alive, in ourselves, in our bodies, present in the moment and walking the path–how can we ever be lost?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles

Does the Inner Witness Ever Take a Vacation?

I've been wondering about this lately, mostly in sort of half-joking, half-desperate emails to friends. Here's the deal: During my time in Costa Rica for my yoga teacher training, I focused really strongly on awakening the inner witness consciousness, that part of the self which simply observes with benevolent curiosity and who brings attentiveness and awareness to every activity. Do you see what I'm getting at here? Read that line again:"...brings attentiveness and awareness to every activity."

Here's a little example from my day. I know that sugar is bad for me, and not bad for me in that sense that everyone says, oh yes, sugar's so bad for me but doesn't really mean it, but bad for me in the sense that my body really struggles with it in a truly bad for me way. And I mostly steer clear of it for that reason. But today I took a long walk with not enough food in me, got home and thought, wow, I'd really like some cookies. Not only did my inner witness attend to the issue, but she had actually FORESEEN this very dilemma. So, here's my inner witness observing me objectively, with compassion, wondering how I'm going to respond.

I responded by eating the cookies. And the funny part is that when I do something idiotic like that (oh...I'm sorry! No judgment...) I can feel the "so there!" inherent in the action, like I'm thumbing my nose at the inner witness. Which is truly idiotic because I also know beyond any shadow of a doubt that my inner witness is only my deepest, truest self speaking to me of my real desires, which exist down under all the needy "I want I want I want" kind of desires.

This is a fairly tiny, unimportant example but it is really interesting in my every day life to see how often what I want–because it's fun, because I just don't want to think, because I want people to like me, because I want to fit in, because I want to feel free, because I think it's what I ought to do, because I'm scared, because fill in the blank–runs up against what this deepest, truest voice is telling me. What I want runs up against what my SELF wants for me. And what my SELF wants for me is for me to be true to my nature, surrender to the sacred being within me.

And the irony is that it's not hard to surrender because the right choices for me feel right. What's hard is to struggle against that voice and make the choice that isn't in alignment with my true self. So why on earth do I struggle?

And meanwhile my inner witness just keeps watching and waiting and loving me....Isn't that interesting?

copyright 2007 J. Autumn Needles