What constitutes an “advanced” yoga practice? A lot of people think that an advanced yogi is someone who attends the hardest (i.e., the most physically demanding) yoga classes in town, and has mastered difficult backbends, inversions, and other Cirque du Soleil tricks. I certainly used to think like this, and am still sometimes prone to do so. Over the past year, though, several considerations have forced me to reevaluate my conception of advanced yoga.

First, after having suffered a number of injuries (typical stuff: wrists, knees, neck, shoulder), I’ve come to realize that a “hardcore” yoga practice is not necessarily sustainable in the long term. The body is simply not designed to do, say, 40 handstands and 40 arm balances every single day. Besides, if physical strenuousness were the true measure of an advanced yoga practice, then it would follow that only super-athletic people in their 20s and 30s could be advanced yogis. But this is clearly not the case. The best yoga teachers in the world–i.e., those with the most experience and knowledge–are mostly in their 40s, 50s, and well beyond. (B.K.S. Iyengar is 91!)

Yoga is not all about the physical, despite the fact that many super-athletic people in Level 2-3 and 3-4 classes see yoga as nothing more than exercise. It’s striking to see how many of these so-called advanced yogis are totally obsessed with their bodies, both in terms of what their bodies can do and what their bodies look like. Oftentimes, this leads to a highly competitive environment where everyone is trying to outdo everyone else with greater and more astonishing physical feats. I used to practice in such an environment, which is how I learned how to do many of the acrobatic stunts I did for my Digital Asana Project. Nowadays I rarely practice like this, partly because there are no classes in Bloomington that are taught in this way, and partly because my wrists can’t really handle it anymore. More importantly, though, I’m finding there’s far more to an advanced yoga practice than just sweating a lot and getting toned muscles.

I’ve also been rethinking what an advanced yoga practice means as I’ve learned more about yoga and the history of yoga. It’s sobering to remember that once upon a time, “asana” just referred to seated lotus, and that was the one and only pose in yoga. Even as the number of asanas expanded to include many of the poses we’re familiar with today, asana was never an end in itself, but a means to the true end of yoga: Samadhi.

Frequently, in a modern yoga class, it’s easy to lose sight of the more subtle (and, arguably, more important) possibilities of the yoga practice. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with merely doing yoga for exercise. But, as one of my teachers used to say, if you do yoga without the special mindfulness of a yogi, you’re not really doing yoga, you’re doing Indian calisthenics. (Actually, to be perfectly accurate, the yoga we practice today is not uniquely Indian calisthenics, but an amalgam of British Navel exercises from the 19th century, gymnastics, and other relatively modern forms of exercise.)

So what is an advanced yoga practice? I like to think of it like this: In an advanced yoga class, the practice tends to be more physical, but it’s also less about the physical. To put it another way, in an advanced yoga class, we’re trying to be less attached to the physical body. Attachment to the physical body can manifest in a number of ways. Below, I’ll consider the two ways in which this usually happens. I call these “soft attachment” and “hard attachment”. Both forms of attachment can be quite intense, and in that sense they can both be strong attachments. Typically, people tend towards either soft or hard attachment, but usually, from what I’ve observed in myself and in my students, most people exhibit both forms of attachment.

Soft Attachment: One thing that may be challenging in an advanced class is dealing with the sheer physical discomfort of some of the poses. A common response to this discomfort it to run away from it. Sometimes literally. I’ve seen students walk out of my classes because–as they told me later–the class was unbearable from a physical standpoint. Other students steer clear of physically demanding classes because what they really want out of a yoga class is relaxation and stress relief, and a hard yoga class is anything but relaxing and de-stressing. Finally, the most common way to run away from the physical challenge and discomfort of an advanced yoga class is to cheat the poses. I know this from experience. In my practice, I go through periods of lethargy and laziness where I have to fight the urge to make the poses easier–e.g., taking a shorter (and easier) stance in my Warrior poses, resting on my arm in Triangle Pose, relaxing my legs when they should be engaged in Uttanasa, etc.

The tendency to fight, reject, and run away from physical discomfort in yoga has a number of causes. First, it’s just natural for us to avoid discomfort, especially if that discomfort has turned into, say, burning in the thighs or pain-like sensations in our back. Second, a lot of novice yogis have the misimpression that yoga is supposed to be easy, that they don’t have to put any real work into it and can still get all the benefits. (When, in life, is this ever true!?) Finally, and most importantly, people run from discomfort because they are attached to comfort and immediately pass judgment on discomfort as something to be avoided. Once we get over this, though, and accept that yoga is going to be physically challenging, and that this will necessarily involve all manner of discomfort, then we can start doing the real work of yoga. That is, we can stop running away from stress and start learning how to manage it.

Hard Attachment: This is the type of attachment exhibited by the yoga jock. This is exactly how I would characterize myself during the first 5 or 6 years of my practice. A person who practices yoga in this manner exhibits “hard attachment” by always pushing  and straining for harder and harder classes. “No pain, no gain” is this yogi’s motto. If it doesn’t burn, if it doesn’t make you sweat buckets, it’s no good. That was my way of thinking for a long time, and it lead me to miss out on a lot of great teachers (especially Iyengar teachers) who had tremendous knowledge about yoga, but were totally uninterested in teaching sweaty fitness classes.

The yogi of hard attachment is always looking for her yoga high. Frequently, she wants or needs intense heat and humidity, loud music, and all sorts of stimulation to make her practice as exciting and invigorating as possible. She wants to have fun, get in shape, and kick ass in yoga class. She wants to burn as many calories and as much fat as possible in each session. I once knew a guy who actually measured the quality of each yoga class by weighing his sweaty clothes afterward. A “five pound” yoga class was a good one; any less and he felt ripped off. Another guy once said to me that he went to Level 3-4 classes to “feel like his face got smashed into the cement.” This guy, needless to say, was also a “hardcore” yogi, and would bitch and moan if ever there was a class that didn’t nearly kill him.

Now let’s compare the novice yoga (who may exhibit “soft” or “hard” attachment, or both) and the advanced yogi. The advanced yogi is less upset and mentally disrupted by physically demanding poses and intense asana sequences. She is more comfortable being outside her comfort zone. She’s more comfortable taking risks. That is to say, she’s more comfortable being uncomfortable. This doesn’t mean that she ignores discomfort or pain, blindly powering her way through the practice. On the contrary, she’s fully aware of the sensations, but she’s also fully aware that they are just sensations. The advanced yogi recognizes that the physical postures, and the intensity of an advanced yoga practice, are intended to introduce immediate and inescapable stressors to the body and the mind. By learning to face these stressors head-on, instead of hiding from them, making them go away, or admitting defeat, she learns to remain calm and strong in the midst of great challenge. That is, she learns to do yoga.

At the same time, the advanced yogi doesn’t need her yoga fix, and she’s content in just about any class, no matter how hot, cold, sweaty, intense, easy, or weird it is. That is, she doesn’t fall into the trap of hard attachment. She’s okay with a simple and physically relaxing class, even though she doesn’t necessarily crave it and seek it out. Unlike the guy who always wants his face smashed into the cement, the advanced yogi knows how to practice yoga in any environment. That is, she practices non-attachment. In fact, the advanced yogi practices yoga not only on the mat, but off the mat as well. As the practice becomes less about the physical, she practices yoga while sitting in traffic, while being yelled at by her boss, while being sick with the flu. Indeed, the most advanced yogis leave the asana practice altogether, not necessarily having mastered all the postures, but having outgrown the need for them.

Yoga teachers often say, quoting Patanjali, that yoga is about calming or stilling the “fluctuations of the mind.” One of the most direct and intense ways for “fluctuations of the mind” to arise is through physical stress on the body. This, at least in theory, is the reason why many Level 2-3 and 3-4 classes are so physically demanding. “Fluctuations of the mind” also arise when we’re annoyed, bored, angry, agitated, judgmental, grouchy, etc., and these are all emotions that arise when we’re dissatisfied, for one reason or another, with an “easy” or “bad” yoga class. When we can let this go, when we can let go of our soft and hard attachments, then we can actually start to practice yoga.

Depending on our tendency for soft or hard attachment, we may find that we are averse to certain yoga classes, or certain challenges in yoga. But these are probably the very classes and challenges that we need to confront. When we learn to face what is difficult for us with equanimity, then we start to reap the real benefits of yoga. Challenges come from within and without, and all result in disturbances or “fluctuations of the mind.” But it’s a simple fact that life involves inescapable stress and challenge. What we’re left with, then, is figuring out how to deal with stress and challenge when they do arise. And this, I take it, is what an advanced yoga practice is all about.

The Fall 2009 schedule at Bloomington Power Yoga starts today! Here are the major changes and additions:

- Saturday 4:00-5:30 PM Ashtanga (Eugene)

- Sunday 11:00-12:15 PM Community (Teacher Rotation)

- Tuesday 7:45-9:00 PM Level 1-2 (Stephanie)

- Thursday 7:45-9:00 PM Level 1-2 (Marissa)

- Friday 11:00-12:30 PM Kundalini (Jill)

We’ve also updated our rates. Single classes and class packages have gone up slightly in cost, but we dropped our monthly unlimited all the way down to $100.

Almost every time I teach yoga, at least one student says, ”My yoga mat is too slippery!” This can be a real problem, especially for newer students, as well as for those who practice hot yoga, strenuous or vigorous forms of flow, or Ashtanga. I’ve made a number of mat recommendations in the past, but non-slip yoga mats and Yogitoes don’t work for everyone. Today, I want to say a few more things about slippery yoga mats, perhaps some things that will be surprising to a lot of people.

Although it is true that a slippery yoga mat is difficult to practice on, especially one with sweat all over it, the main reason students slide around on their yoga mat has nothing to do with the mat. More often than not, it’s the student, not the mat, which is ultimately the cause for slippage. Most students slide around on the mat because they haven’t yet built up the strength and flexibility necessary to hold the postures steady, or because they simply don’t know how to engage the right muscles. I’ll give a few examples.

Down-Dog:This is the pose most people have trouble with in terms of sliding. Part of the problem, in addition to the mat’s being slippery, is that the student is usually applying too much forward pressure into his hands and too much backward pressure into his feet. Obviously, if you do this on a slippery surface, your hands will move forward and your feet will move backward. In the Platonic Form of the Down-Dog, though, your feet should actually feel like they are sliding foward, and your hands should subtly feel like they are sliding backwards. You can work towards this by engaging the Bandhas, actively using your leg muscles (especially the quads), lifting off the wrists (instead of collapsing into them) and extending out of the shoulders (instead of dropping into them). It helps a lot if you can get your heels to the floor. It’s also tremendously helpful if your hamstrings are open enough so that you can draw more weight into your legs.

One of my teachers had us do the following exercise to teach us how to engage properly in Down-Dog. He had come into Down-Dog on blankets, with one blanket under our hands and one under our feet. (No yoga mat involved in this). Since the blankets are in contact with the smooth floor, they will slide if you do not engage the legs, core, arms, etc. in the proper way. It’s incredibly difficult to hold Down-Dog like this, but it is very instructive. In your actual Down-Dog on the yoga mat, you probably don’t need this level of engagement in your muscles, but something like it is important so that your Down-Dog is a solid posture with a strong base, not a floppy, slippery posture. IMPORTANT: I recommend doing this exercise only with the supervision of a yoga instructor, since you can actually really hurt yourself.

Warrior II: This is another pose that people often slide around in. Usually, it’s the front foot in Warrior II that starts to slide away. Most students immediately blame the yoga mat, but, in reality, their foot is sliding because they are not doing Warrior II properly. The front foot should almost feel as if it is pulling towards the back of the mat. In fact, the pressure of your front foot should be straight down (i.e. perpendicular to the floor), and likewise with your back foot. Ideally, you should be able to do Warrior II on ice, barefoot, and not slide at all. Of course, you need a considerable degree of flexibility in order to be able to get your front leg down to a 90-degree angle, which is crucial if there’s any hope of your applying true downward (i.e. straight down) pressure in your front foot.

To teach us proper muscular engagement in Warrior II, my teacher also had us do this posture on blankets. One blanket under the front foot, and one under the back foot. (Again, no yoga mat here, and the blankets are directly on the floor.) If you are not doing the pose properly, your feet will slide and you’ll have to come out of the posture pretty quickly. IMPORTANT: I recommend doing this exercise only with the supervision of a yoga instructor, since you can actually really hurt yourself.

So, to sum up, slipping on the yoga mat is caused first and foremost by how you practice your postures. Of course, newer students may not be able to get into the poses deep enough to be able to hold them steady, and even more experienced students may tire and start to slip. Also, faster flow classes do not usually allow the time for you to set your poses, so to speak, so there too you may need to use a non-slip mat or Yogitoes. But there’s an important lesson to be learned here (a lesson I learned once upon a time when I was a golfer): Before you go and blame your equipment, first look at what you’re doing to contribute to the problem. You might be surprised at what you find.

We have a new addition to the Bloomington Power Yoga schedule: Zazen. Zazen practice is basically sitting meditation. We sit for 30 minutes. There is no chanting, music, or any other distractions during this type of meditation. The objective, if we can call it that, is simply to sit and observe one’s thoughts and one’s mind. Pretty simple.

For newer students, there will be a brief introduction at the beginning of each session, and someone will stick around afterwards to answer any questions.

When: Saturdays 5:30-6:00PM

Where: Blooming Lotus Studio (same place where yoga class meets)

Cost: Small Donation

To learn more about Zazen, drop by the Sanshinji Zen Community on Olive St., or check out their website.

After returning to the climbing gym a few times, I’ve discovered that I no longer experience what’s know as “Elvis Leg”–that uncontrollable shaking that sometimes happens to one or both of your legs from exhaustion.

I’m convinced that yoga has improved my leg strength and endurance, allowing me to climb longer and with greater power. There are some poses in particular that can help build the relevant leg strength. I’ll just list them here today, with the goal of eventually constructing a fun sequence for people to practice at home. (Of course, this sequence is also good for yogis who don’t rock climb.)

Before I list the poses, I need to mention two things. In order for these poses to build strength you need to (1) really do them, and (2) hold them for much longer than just a few breaths. To really do a pose, you need to engage your muscles, not just hang out in the posture. It’s useful to remember that many yoga poses are isometric (as opposed to isotonic) exercises. That means the muscles are engaged–i.e. contracted–not relaxed. While I’m on the topic, I should also mention that most yoga poses are not, contrary to popular minconception, mere ”stretching,” which is usually entirely passive and involves no muscle contraction. It can take years to figure out how to “work the pose” in yoga, because almost all the muscular engagement has to be initiated by the practitioner herself, not with the prompting of, say, weights or machines.

Warrior I

Warrior II

Chair Pose

Crescent Warrior

Warrior III

Half-Moon Pose

Extended Side Angle

Standing Splits

This timely piece in today’s NY Times discusses a recent trend of state governments trying to regulate yoga teacher training programs. This would involve a pricey certification process and fees, and would be conducted independent of Yoga Alliance, the current national regulatory body for yoga training programs.

Personally, I think it’s outrageous for states to try to make money off yoga studios. Maybe I’m just cynical, but I find it highly unlikely that state regulators have any real interest in ensuring the quality of yoga training programs–all they really want is to take a cut of the $6 billion yoga industry.

But will government regulation necessarily be worse than what we currently have? Yoga Alliance is the official certifying body for teachers and teacher training programs. Some people happily pay their dues to Yoga Alliance so they can remain “RYT,” but I have also heard a lot of criticism from people that such certification means very little in the end. The evidence seems to bear this out. Just about anyone can become a certified yoga teacher these days, as long as you have the time and money (thousands of dollars, usually). I’ve seen opportunistic people who have taken fewer than 10 yoga classes go and do a teacher training course so they can add “RYT” to their resume, and then reap the financial benefits by teaching yoga to unwitting students. There are even yoga teacher training correspondence courses that you can do entirely through the mail! These are extreme cases, but in terms of credibility (or lack thereof), it’s not all that different from the more common situation where people with less than a year or two of yoga experience become certified teachers, usually in just a few weeks. This is something that would never happen under the “traditional” system of yoga training. Before yoga became a multi-billion-dollar industry, training to be a yoga teacher was a serious undertaking that required years of practice and then years of training. As much as possible, training was kept free of all financial and profit-making elements, so that the motivations of everyone involved stayed true to yoga.

I know the “traditional” scenario I’m describing sounds hopelessly idealistic and infeasible for the current situation in the US, but I do think there’s some middle ground. At the very least, teacher training programs should be much longer than they are, certainly a lot longer than these “4-week intensives” that are all around. For comparison, let’s consider some other professions and how long it takes to be certified to work in them. To become a plumber in this country, you often need to do a 5-year apprenticeship (10,000 hours) plus nearly 800 hours of classroom time.  The requirements to become a certified electrician are similarly demanding. If you want to teach at a university or even at a community college, you usually have to go to school full-time for 2 to 10 years to get a MA or PhD. So why should someone be able to teach yoga with just a few weeks of training? Compared to other sorts of professional training, yoga teacher training is kind of a joke. If Yoga Alliance, the state government, or whoever, is really concerned about maintaining quality among yoga teachers, then I don’t think it would be too onerous to require a 1 or 2 year apprenticeship and 1 to 2 years of classroom time to become a yoga teacher. This would vastly improve the quality of teachers out there, and would do a lot to weed out those who really aren’t committed and are just looking for a quick and profitable career change.

Of course, a lot of studios depend heavily upon teacher training programs for revenue, and they market these programs not just towards would-be teachers, but also to people who want to deepen their practice. Maybe these two groups should be split up. Teacher training programs should be conducted just for people who are serious about becoming teachers, and the “deepen your practice” programs should be advertised as something else. This way, studios could still make their money, while ensuring that teachers-in-training are both serious about yoga and trained well.

My last remark on this topic is that, under my proposal, I  would not be able to teach yoga. This is fine with me. I enjoy teaching yoga, but readily admit that I would be a much better teacher if I had the opportunity to study under a “master yogi” for several years and apprenticed with him/her. While I lived in LA, I did something akin to this by practicing for five years, almost daily, with some of the best teachers in the country. And I’m confident that this experience is more valuable than any certification that I could get in 4 weeks, at the cost of $2000-$4000. But I also know that I still need to learn a lot more, and feel woefully inadequate at times in my knowledge and abilities as a teacher.

This interview with a sports nutritionist provides some useful tips on how to optimize your food and drink intake in preparation for exercise and during your workout. Although her comments are general, and not specific to yoga, some of what she says does pertain to yoga practitioners, especially those who do sweatier and more physical forms of yoga.

For some additional thoughts about what and when to eat before yoga, check out my previous post on this topic.

After a long hiatus, I’m trying to get back into rock climbing. Hopefully, I’ll be able to stick with it and can start posting climbing-oriented yoga sequences on this blog again.

I went to the climbing gym for the first time in a very long while, and was reminded very quickly just how fun climbing is, and also how well it goes with yoga. There was actually a route named “Yoga Helps”–rated a 10c–and, yes, yoga did help. To my great surprise, I made it to the top without falling or taking any breaks.

There are some obvious ways in which yoga and climbing are compatible. The upper body strength needed for climbing is developed by and needed for yoga, especially when it comes to arm balances and handstands. Also, the “strength within flexibility” which one develops in yoga is very useful in rock climbing: the greater the range of motion you have with your limbs, and the more strength and control you can exert throughout that entire range of motion, the more agile you will be.

More interesting for me, however, are the ways in which yoga and climbing both demand the same sorts of mental skills. Both require a certain level of fearlessness, not to mention focus, body awareness, calm in the face of intense challenge, and sometimes a strong dose tapas.

My biggest challenge has been finding the time to teach yoga, do yoga, and also climb. There’s only so many hours in a day, after all, and being a full-time PhD student is my main priority and takes up most of my time. So I often find myself having to choose between different activities. If someone would just open up a yoga studio and climbing gym in one, I’d be all set!

Despite my intention to practice yoga a few times while traveling through Ireland and the UK, that never happened. I went three weeks without doing any yoga–the longest stretch I’ve gone without yoga in years–and my body feels all out of whack. It makes me wonder what my body would feel like if I never did yoga!

In the past few days, I’ve been getting back into my practice, and have been surprised to see just how stiff and tight I got. I was tightest in my hamstrings and back. It was also pretty obvious to me that I lost some strength, especially core strength. Stupidly, I pushed myself a bit too hard the first few days back, and ended up overdoing it. I was lucky not to hurt myself, but I could barely walk for a few days because I overstretched my legs.

This experience has gotten me thinking about two things. First, why didn’t I practice yoga for three weeks while traveling? Second, what is a better way to get back into one’s yoga practice after taking a considerable break?

The main reasons I didn’t practice yoga were the cost and the difficulty of getting to a yoga class. In several cites, like Dublin and London, there are definitely yoga classes around, but they cost anywhere from 20-25 bucks per class, after the currency exchange. I just couldn’t bring myself to pay that much money for a yoga class. In addition to the cost, the schedules were usually pretty sparse, so if you couldn’t make the one evening class on a given day, no yoga for you.

Of course, even if I couldn’t make it to a yoga class, or didn’t want to pay, I could have practiced on my own. I toyed with doing some yoga in my hotel room on a few occasions, but there’s something very unappealing about practicing yoga on a small piece of hotel carpet squished between the bed and the TV.

In the end, I decided to do what most Europeans seem to do as their primary form of exercise: walk. Over the course of 3 weeks, I must have walked about 100 miles, or about 5 miles per day. (I guess this can explain why my legs were so tight.) Although it might have been nice to check out yoga in some different cities, I’m glad in some ways to have taken a break. As I get back into my practice, I’m learning a lot about just how important yoga is to my life, and how it benefits my body and mind.

This brings me to my second question. Obviously, if you take some time away from yoga, it’s a good idea to take it easy as you get back into things. It’s also probably a good idea not to do yoga every single day right off the bat, even if you normally practice that often. Overall, I think for every week you take off, it takes about half that time for your body to get back to its previous stength and flexibility. This isn’t scientifically proven or anything, at least as far as I know, but this has been my general experience. Of course, if you take a huge amount of time off, like 2 years, then it might take bit longer to build your practice up again.

The most important thing, which I didn’t do, is to be safe and patient when returning to a physically demanding activity like vinyasa flow yoga. For me personally, the greatest obstacle in returning to yoga has been my own ego–I wanted so badly to get right back into all the advanced poses I usually do, and wasn’t willing to wait even a week. Keeping the ego in check is, of course, one of the greatest challenges of yoga, something to work on for a liftetime, both when you’re doing yoga, and when you’re not.

I’m leaving tomorrow for Ireland, and won’t be posting on the blog for the next three weeks or so. I’ll be back in the US, and online, in mid June.

In the meantime, all classes at Bloomington Power Yoga will be held as usual, including my classes, which will be covered by Anastacia and Susan.