Perfect Sense - Sensing Your Yoga Practice

My good friend Tiffany was kind enough to invite me to a Sundance screening of "Perfect Sense" starring Eva Green and Ewan McGregor. The premise (as per IMDb): "A chef and a scientist fall in love as an epidemic begins to rob people of their sensory perceptions."

If you would like to see the movie ... don't read further! However, I believe the concept and underlying themes were so fascinating that I want to break it down in detail:

(1) Opening scene: Hero and heroine are in bed, post-coital bliss, until the hero asks the heroine to leave immediately because he can't sleep with her present. I interpret this as an alternative outcome, if the epidemic did not happen ...
(2) Throughout the storyline, the heroine meets the hero, and constantly questions whether he is "just the same" as all of the other disappointing flings she has had, although the epidemic constantly leads them into encounters that evolve the nature of their relationship.
(3) First phase of widespread epidemic: Victims succumb to significant grief followed by the loss of their sense of smell. Hero, who is a chef, is determine that "life will, as it does, go on" and toils to change his restaurants offering to exploit other senses, primarily taste. I.e., heavy spices and plays on alternating textures and temperatures to compensate for one's 80% loss of taste and 100% loss of smell.
(4) Second phase of the widespread epidemic: Victims succumb to paralyzing fear followed be the loss of their sense of taste. Again, "life goes on" people go to restaurants to hear good conversation and melodic clinking of glasses, to see artfully crafted plates with skillfully architected food with vibrant colors.
(5) Third phase: Victims succumb to uncontrollable rage followed by the loss of hearing. At this point, civilization finds it harder to bounce back. The hero alienates heroine as he encounters the symptom of rage first and spews at her a number of expletives, including calling her "fat and flour", that is, more or less communicating to the heroine that she is not special, in essence, like all the rest. The heroine is crushed and departs, later to succumb to this phase of the epidemic.
(6) Fourth phase: Victims succumb to overwhelming feelings of love and a desire to connect with others before becoming blind. The heroine and hero find each other on the street - as they are approaching to embrace, the screen goes dark. There is nothing left but touch.

The world is full of opposites, most defined through our major senses. This tastes good. That sound hurts my ears. She's pretty. That's a horrible odor! I find it a little poetic that love (the desire to connect) was the last feeling prior to losing all senses except for the ability to feel.

Taking this to my mat - clearing the distractions associated with the other senses, e..g, the dog is barking again, I see a speck of dust on my mat, it smells musty in this room, I still taste that last chocolate chip cookie ... it was a fascinating experience. The "give" in the mat is magnified, I'm able to scan the status of each of my active body parts without distraction, each area of opening is significant. The practice is child-like. I feel like I was really connected, really grounded in the practice.

I encourage you to give it a try.

Impressions re Baron Baptiste

I just returned home from the first evening of a Baron Baptiste workshop at the Centered City Yoga Studio in Salt Lake City, entitled "How to Heal Relationships with Yoga".

I'm going to wait until after the weekend to develop an opinion (I'd like to digest the experience first), but here are some initial impressions:

• Baron did not have the presence that I had anticipated: my perceptions of Baron have been crafted around hearsay and advertisements. In my mind, "Yoga Bootcamp" does not convey a laid-back person. However, to my surprise, Baron was relaxed but assertive - but the practice is still quite vigorous!
• Interesting enough, the owner of Centered City Yoga is Baron's former spouse. To my knowledge, the ex-couple were more or less at odds for the past couple of years. During the introductory conversation, Baron was extremely candid about his relationship with D'ana (former wife). I find the personal disclosure very interesting ... we'll see if it remains in the realm of "appropriate" over the course of the workshop.
• One of Baron's comments that resonated: "If you have a conflict with someone in your life, consider that it's 100% on YOU and not on the OTHER." In my mind, there are a number of potential themes birthed from this comment worth exploring, including taking total responsibility for our aversions, whatever (or whomever) the subject of the aversion may be. Another theme might be the effort to eliminate the notion of other, in the pursuit of unity, oneness, etc.
• The first session was to provide the class with a training ground to examine personal relationships (i.e., the relationship one has with himself/herself). The instruction was to "literally let yourself come apart on the mat during the flow sequence. During this age where alignment is king (and sucking in your belly is the superficial queen), the invitation was greatly appreciated! Grounding the feet or other parts of the body in contact with the floor were emphasized simultaneously with upward-facing drishti and/or reaching toward the heavens with the upward-reaching limbs, as appropriate. Literally pulling oneself apart - peeling back layers of the onion.
• I have to add an additional comment, whether it's valuable to the audience or not ... the room was extremely hot. Nearly Bikram-hot. I don't sweat that much during my marathon-training runs! And given, the Ethereal Room is generally a tad bit chilly during the winter, it was quite a change!

Stay tuned ... 

Yoga Props: Building the Studio Toolkit (Part 2)

Earlier, I provided a laundry list of the props/resources that I currently use in the fledgling studio. I asked, "How much is too much?"


Today, I decided that it isn't too much unless it starts to hinder the practice in some way. A good article from Yoga Journal: "To Prop or Not to Prop".


In fact, I determined that my recent affinity to Restorative Yoga and the hope that one day, I would expand my practice to eventually share the Ethereal Room with others, purchases were in order!


Now, the inventory includes two (2) rectangular bolsters, two (2) round bolsters, two (2) cork blocks, a couple of belts and six (6) blankets. Please note that Manduka is offering a free shipping promotion through January 31, 2011 (and these large bolsters really rack up shipping charges). For more information, visit Manduka's website.


It looks like the list is out of control, right? Check it out:


Supported Shoulderstand: For many, three (3) blankets, a mat and a belt are sufficient. The image does not show the practitioner using a belt. The belt is lengthened and secured at shoulder's width (from shoulder-to-shoulder) and slipped onto the upper arms after entering the posture. As someone that sits at a computer all day, this feels amazing!


Supported Shoulderstand (variation): I was unable to locate an image on the Internet that illustrates this version, but I recall really enjoying this asana variation while taking Restore classes at Sacred Movement (now Exhale Spa - Venice) from Aaron Reed. Place a rectangular bolster lengthwise on the mat. Fold 2-3 blankets and place directly on top of the bolster. The edges of the blankets should not drape over the sides of the bolster. Lay on top of the bolster. Position the torso to allow shoulders to press into the mat. Place a block at the tallest orientation at the foot of the mat, so that heels can be placed on top of the block. Use a yoga strap to secure the legs together. Let the arms open up to either side of the bolster.


Supported Viparita Karani: After a long run or a long day standing (12+ hours) at a trade show, Supported Viparita Karani is just the right medicine, especially for those that simply can't relax in the traditional form of Viparita Karani due to tight hamstrings. This asana is a prop-hog as well: Jillian Pransky recommends two (2) round bolsters and four (4) blankets.


Supported Supta Baddha Konasana: My favorite all-time relaxation pose! If you don't have six (6) blankets for arm support, two (2) rectangular bolsters should suffice. For a less supportive version of supported supta baddha konasana, simply lay back on a rectangular bolster. A long belt wrapped around the back of the pelvis and underneath the ankles will keep the hips and inner groin in a deep stretch - allowing the practitioner to simply release.


Can you see how quickly props add up for a good restore practice? Years ago, you would have never seen me with a prop (especially during my Bikram years). Now, I just can't get enough.

Personal Musings: Just Let the Yogis Be!

I confess, since re-establishing my "home base" in Utah, I've grown more or less removed from the happenings and gossip in the yoga industry. Salt Lake City is insulated from the ranting (and ravings) regarding celebrity yoga teachers, proclamations of hypocrisy and scandals. Of course, looking deeper inside the micro-community in the immediate geography, you can uncover some gossip-worthy topics here and there.


The buffer between this community and the rest of industry, including its hyper-centers in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York (amongst others), has been in my mind, both fortunate and unfortunate. I like thinking that the community is getting along superbly.


I started this blog last week and find its my responsibility to not only consider what's going on in my little "Ethereal Room" but what's going on in the general marketplace. Consequently, I subscribed to several noteworthy blogs and alerts for yoga-specific keywords.


Fortunately and or unfortunately, this action blasted me back immediate earshot of non-constructive criticisms of fellow yogis and their recommended approaches. For instance, one of the Yoga Journal blogs today post included a survey regarding Tara Stiles, author of Slim Calm Sexy Yoga ("Tara Stiles: Yoga Friend or Foe?"). Critics abound!


My thoughts:


The industry is growing every year. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, yoga is practiced by approximately 14% of United States citizens. Plainly, this is a lot of people!


Now, I may espouse similar traits with a good fraction of this population, but I wouldn't venture to say that all yogis and yoginis are carbon copies and prefer the same cup o' tea. Hence the rise of multiple and differing demands within the marketplace, which in turn leads to fragmentation in the industry. Fragmentation has led to different schools of yoga, different yoga companies, including manufacturers of mats, props, apparel and associated products, a plethora of retreat centers and forms of entertainment. Is this a bad thing?


In order to educate the marketplace regarding a specific (and different) solution (a.k.a., products and/or services), the merchants need to position themselves. Positioning is generally communicated to the marketplace in a classic fashion (i.e., think the four P's of marketing: product/service, place, price, promotion). But there's also deeper form of positioning (branding) which tells the consumer the company's values, mission, etc. Oftentimes, in this pursuit of differentiation, the communications are a little more extreme. For example, I don't think that toesox is advising through their print ads that practitioners should visit their yoga studios in the buff ... it's more of a commentary on the importance of tools that help one's practice. Let's face it: traditional apparel like that sold by lululemon and athleta is probably not going to change one's practice substantially. In addition, despite the fairly obvious name "toesox", the company is sufficiently communicating the product that they are selling. The company maintains that the ads are "artsy" - but I just think it's a good example of a brand communicating to its customer base. Is it wrong to attempt to be truthful and accurate to your target market?

Yoga in the Pod

It was a weekday when I decided to blog about the Ethereal Room and my desire to evolve the space into a private studio characterized by light, openness, receptivity, etc.

My workouts, including planned yoga sessions, are all recorded in my Google Calendar. I had planned a four-mile run on the treadmill at work, followed by a nice long Yin session at home in the Ethereal Room.

But plans are made to be broken, right? A good friend called and announced that he was flying into Salt Lake City at 8:30 p.m. Would I like to have dinner? Well, of course! My husband, Vince, been out of town for a couple of days and I wouldn't mind the company.


I had no time to speed up the canyon to Park City (40 minutes) to practice at home. Plus, I'm not a huge fan of unnecessary driving.

Therefore project Transform Desolate Space to Ethereal Room was put on temporary hold.

Then I realized what I was doing ... I am a talented procrastinator! My space cannot wait another moment. If I can't get my bum up the ladder into my loft, then I would bring the loft to me.

I sat down on the floor my cubicle (affectionately called a "pod" by my employers) and found my way into baddha konasana. Three minutes in the wide variation, three minutes in the traditional posture. I spent the duration in the forward-folding asanas (which comprised most of the practice) observing the superficial muscles of my back spread open. Space. Mmmm.

The light timers in the building snapped off. There I was, laying back on the floor in total silence and surrounded by complete darkness. Then, the cleaning service marched in with their rolling trash bins. I don't know who surprised who more - but I think it shaved a year or two off my life.


P.S. I enjoyed Frida Bistro (contemporary Mexican cuisine) that evening. It's amazing!

Yoga Props: Building the Studio Toolkit

How much is too much?

I already had a good number of items for the studio ... as a former Manduka employee, I outfitted the yoga studio with a PurpleLite (closest option nowadays is the ProLite) and Black Mat Pro. The floor space? Filled.

It's not really about filling the space with unnecessary items. The truth is, I could practice with nothing but a clean space. However, I want the Ethereal Room to be a place where I want to practice, which means supplementing the space with mats, props and associated materials.

Why two mats? I would love for someone, one day, to share practice space with me. Or even better, the studio can be dual-functional, serving both for my personal practice and administering private practice sessions. Dare to dream.

Since I've been practicing for over ten (10) years, I have already collected a small assortment of props. These were placed in the room, including:

• Wool blanket (quantity 3, color: thunder)
• Round bolster (quantity 1, color: thunder)
• Rectangular bolster (quantity 1, color: thunder)
• Cork yoga block (quantity 1)
• Long yoga strap (quantity 1)
• Short yoga stap (quantity 1) - from Gaiam, the style is so old it's not available any more!
• Eye pillow (quantity 1) - from Manduka, the style is so old it's not available any more!

Already, I adore practicing in a space where props are readily available (i.e., within an arm's length). I have practiced sarvangasana more in the past couple of weeks than I have in the past three (3) years. In other studios, I have avoided shoulderstand altogether, being too fearful of neck injury and knowing that, by the time I skipped across the room to the prop storage area and back to my mat, the teacher would have moved on to the next asana.

Three (3) blankets, a mat and a strap. Yum, yum. My shoulders are blossoming ... which I must confess, I never felt any form of shoulder opening in shoulderstand in the past. Better yet, the posture is not accompanied by worried thoughts of, "Am I killing my neck?"

I digress. Back to the prop list!

Now, I'm all about flowing from the original source (i.e., flowing in and out of postures as they come to mind), but I have prepared the studio with sources of inspiration when I'm just way too damn tired to seek within, recognizing that I have to make this easy if this is to become a habit.

In the corner of the studio is a journal to record thoughts and sequences, a magazine container with the past year's issues from Yoga Journal, a couple CD's from D'ana Baptiste (leftover from my 500 hour teacher training) and a couple of DVDs from Max Strom. And of course, a mini DVD-player and a mini heater.

As I predicted, I would need to go to alternative sources to derive an appropriate sequence. On Saturday, I ran six (6) miles in preparation for a half marathon in March. Getting up the ladder to access the studio was hard enough ... now I was supposed to conjure a brilliant sequence out of thin air? No way.

About a year ago, Jillian Pransky provided a restorative sequence for Yoga Journal called "On Solid Ground", which recommended a series of support mechanisms to allow the practitioner to feel a little more grounded (and perhaps avoid some of the feelings of anxiety that may appear) during the practice. I modified it a bit (I had to include supported shoulderstand!). However, my little prop stash and various items I fashioned into make-shift props didn't even come close to the sheer volume required to support the sequence.

I ask again, how much is too much? I don't mind purchasing additional props, say another block, round and rectangular bolster and maybe a blanket or two. However, I don't want to turn the Ethereal Room which was supposed to be reflective of open space to turn into a cluttered bolster closet.

Naming My Space

The room was left unused for so long that I've spent some time trying to figure out why I didn't use a gift that elicited such an emotional response.

I moved to Park City, Utah in April 2006. Prior to the move, I lived in Oak Park, California and attended the business school at Pepperdine University (Malibu campus). My life revolved around yoga and school. I was content and the monkey-mind was quiet.

My "home" studio was Sacred Movement, located mere blocks away from Venice Beach. Sure, parking was a pain in my side, especially during the summer months, but immediately upon crossing the threshold of the studio a wave of calm always washed over me.

The atmosphere? Fresher. The patrons? Nicer. The studio format was well designed (well-lit with natural lighting) and easy on the eyes (subtle colors and open spaces). The teaching skill was better suited to my needs than I had experienced elsewhere.

After savasana, I would shower in the ladies' room and go on my way and more often than not, as a better person than I was when I walked in the studio. Reverence for myself and others - that was the overall feeling. It's interesting, given I have always been the type that walks away from a church feeling blase (at best) or uncomfortable (at worst).

I moved to Park City. Since, I haven't been able to re-create the feeling despite sampling many of the local studios. And I miss it.

So, this year, I decided if I couldn't find it elsewhere, I was going to manufacture the environment myself. Given I've always harbored this dream that one fine day I would be running my own studio to share yoga with others, I decided to fashion a mini-studio out of the forgotten loft. Practice makes perfect.

To get rid of the pedestrian feeling of the room, I decided to name it. "Sacred Movement" is more appealing than "that yoga studio in Venice", right? I named it the "Ethereal Room", hoping that one day, the room would emit characteristics of light, air, space, and maybe just a little bit of heaven on Earth.

Welcome to the Ethereal Room

There is a small room in my home which is only accessible by ladder. For the first year of living in the Matterhorn house, the room was covered in sickly blue carpet and dead flies. It required too much effort to get a vacuum up the ladder without assistance from another, so the room was more or less left alone. Until the following Christmas (2008).

That Christmas, which we celebrated in California with my parents, my fiancee gave me a candle. The candle was a surprise, because oftentimes, Vince is a phenomenal gift-giver. Seriously. He saw my surprise (i.e., disappointment) and said, "The present isn't the candle. The candle represents your own yoga studio".

I burst out crying. Back at the house, Vince had arranged for our neighbor to install bamboo flooring in the loft. To this day, I'm hard-pressed to come up with a better gift.

Two years had passed and the bamboo-floored loft was left mostly unused.

This is a blog about the transformation of a plain loft into my personal yoga studio, my Ethereal Room.