Five Points Yoga

Barrett's Blog

Notes from the Field – Week 1 in the Yoga Odyssey

Posted January 15th, 2010 | 1 Comment » | Bookmark and Share

I always have a *terrible* time keeping up with the blog during the Yoga Odyssey, but I’m really trying this time!   Seeing as this is the first week of the Yoga Odyssey, and I’m so immersed in the program, I thought I’d share some highlights of what we’re experiencing.

There’s a community bulletin board as part of the program.   People share a bit about their yoga journey, their experiences during the practice, and questions (and answers) they might have.   It’s fun, and new and different each time!

I’ve been thinking about our demographics as I’ve read participants’ introductions on the bboard.  There have been some fun things I’ve noticed: 

 We have a mother-daughter combo!  In October we had two whole families participate which was also really fun.   I like watching them write each other on the bulletin board J We have at least two sibling pairs this time around, and of course, several friends practicing together “virtually” through the Odyssey.   It makes me happy that this is a project people can share together.

We also have a lot of new moms in our program, in large part because I teach prenatal and postnatal yoga.   I think the moms have started to bond over the joy and challenge of having young children, and finding the balance in order to be able to take some time out for themselves.   

Finally, we have several people from out of the United States.   One participant commented on the interesting sensation of being a little out of phase with the majority of the US-based participants.   She was finding it an interesting challenge to wake up to practice “while everyone else is resting sublime in sleep.”   I’ve thought of that too, when I get an email at 3am in the morning from someone.   Of course, that doesn’t always mean they’re in a different time zone from me, but definitely we are not in phase :)    That’s the beauty of this – you can do it at any time.  Because I won’t be teaching a class at 3am any time soon, but you may want to practice at that time! 

Anyway, thank you all for the first week – it’s been wonderful for me so far!

Love and light,

Barrett  


Posted under Personal Experiences, Yoga

Reflections on a Decade of Teaching in Boston

Posted January 5th, 2010 | 10 Comments » | Bookmark and Share


BIG NEWS!  It’s 2010! I moved to Boston in October 1999, on the cusp of the millennium, 10 years ago.   I taught a yoga class the very weekend I moved to town, even though I was sleeping on my friend Mel’s couch without an apartment of my own.   I’ve pretty much taught every week that I’ve been in town since then :)

These 10 years have flown by.   Some of you I’ve been practicing with for that entire time, which kind of blows my mind.  A lot has happened in my yoga life in this decade, and it’s been fun for me to reflect on it over the last few days.

I took my first teacher training in 1997, started teaching in 1998, and became certified to teach in 1999.  I was still pretty new to teaching when I moved to Boston, but then, a lot of people were new to yoga back then, so it wasn’t that scary to just jump in and try it out.   I *still* have the sheet of paper that I kept notes on for my first weeks of Sunday morning classes!

From 2000 to 2005, I worked part-time in public health and part-time teaching yoga.  I was very happy to have the stability of a desk job with a fixed paycheck, but the flexibility to teach as many classes as I could.  I learned a lot about teaching through those years, and did a lot of training.

In 2001, I started to spend a good chunk of the winter time in Costa Rica, with my teachers.  I got my advanced certification, and assisted in teacher trainings for a few years.   I also got away from Boston in the most frigid time of the year, which probably helped keep me here this long!   I do much better with the winters now, and though I haven’t gone to Costa Rica since 2005, I’ve continued to travel every someplace warm every winter since. I credit yoga practice with helping me realize that I have to be *proactive* in the wintertime, and find ways to not get too SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).

Finally, in 2005, it became clear to me that I was ready to teach full-time.   I spent 6 months planning with a business coach, developing a website, and visioning how I wanted my career to look.   It’s been challenging, but totally fantastic as well.   Though I’ve doubted at times, it has only been out of fear of the unknown future, not because of a bleak present.   I’ve finally just fallen into trusting that teaching ROCKS, and if it stops rocking at some point, I’ll make a new plan.

In these 10 years, I have taught in SO MANY different studios and locations, though happily, I’ve settled here in Cambridge and do a lot less travelling now than I used to.  From renting space – who remembers the church in Davis Square (actually 2 churches, 1 chiropractic office, and a basement private studio)? – to working in gyms and offices and private homes, I’ve done it all.  At least it feels that way.   I remember saying to someone once, “I think I’ve gotten to the point where you could wake me up in the middle of the night and ask me to teach a class on the moon, upside down, and I could do it.”

There’s definitely been thoughts over the years about starting a studio, but wow is it tough.  Not only is it difficult financially to pay the bills and pay your teachers well, but it’s also just tough on your personal practice.  The more you administer, the less you teach.  So, I’ve looked to projects that are a little more creative, and a little less scary than starting a studio.   The Yoga Odyssey is the big one.   I’ve been offering it for 2 years now, and it’s SO FUN.   I’m planning to offer a teacher training this year as well, and some other fun products to sell on my website.   Stay tuned!!

Two months ago, I took a business workshop.  In one part, we were doing some visioning.  With a partner, we reminisced about where we were 10 years ago.  I talked about many of the same things I’ve written about above.  Then, we visioned 10 years from now, and it was awesome to think about 2020, and where I’ll be then.   I don’t know the details, but I know I’ll be practicing and teaching yoga!

Love and light, and Happy New Year!

Barrett (on the mic playing Rock Band New Year’s Eve)

NewYears2010


Posted under Local Interest, Yoga

Cauliflower and a Love of Diversity

Posted December 30th, 2009 | 4 Comments » | Bookmark and Share

Oh, I miss my farm!  It’s only been 2 months, and I am already in withdrawl from the lusciousness that is fresh vegetables.   Yes, I love this season for the citrus fruits and the winter squash, but I miss the weekly trips to the farm, and I even miss the wrestling with fridge space every week as Gadi and I try to finish the share. 

So, how could I pass up this amazing cauliflower that was at Whole Foods?   It wasn’t cheap, but I had never seen anything like it!   I googled it and found out it’s often called the Romanescu cauliflower (or broccoli – depends on what you think it tastes like more).  It took me awhile to find it, because it’s also colloquially called a Mandelbrot cauliflower, after the mathematical Mandelbrot set (see Gadi’s post). 


 Really Awesome Cauliflower

Along with the taste of fresh vegetables, the thing I love most about a local farm share is that we are actually promoting botanical diversity with these farms.   I’m going to get a little political now, but part of the agribusiness model depends on uniformity.   Big (monopolozing and dishonest) companies that supply the majority of our produce to supermarkets spend time studying which tomato they can get to grow the fastest, biggest and cheapest, and then how they can ensure that each tomato they grow will be a clone of that. 

The result?  We start to lose diversity, both in species of plants, and in their flavor and vitality.   In yoga, we have the idea of PRANA – life force, or vitality.   Practicing yoga helps take you from a state of less prana, less vitality, to more.   When I eat a sad supermarket tomato, I can’t help but think that there’s so little prana in that tomato.  Part of my yoga off the mat is eating foods full of prana.  

So I LOVE when I see a new food.   Or a new variety of food.   There’s not just one kind of cauliflower!   There’s not just orange carrots!   There are hundreds of kinds of tomatos out there!   Every time I realize this, it’s this enlightening moment, for my brain and for my tastebuds.  And I’m amazed that even here in New England, where we don’t have a year-round growing season, we can grow an astounding variety of foods!  

Gadi and I were both so taken with this food that we each wanted to write a blog post about it, for very different reasons!  I hope you enjoy.

My parting words: Eat yogic foods – foods high in prana, foods that make you appreciative, and food that nourishes you body and mind!

Love to you all,

Barrett

Posted under Food

The Beauty of Chaos (by Gadi)

Posted December 30th, 2009 | 6 Comments » | Bookmark and Share


I studied chaos theory and fractals in my nonlinear dynamics classes studying Fluid Mechanics in grad school.  It turns out that a bunch of really cool and beautiful parts of our world behave almost randomly… but not quite: turbulence, weather, astronomy, biology, and many more.  In fact the chaotic nature of fluid visualization is one of the things that attracted me most to studying fluid mechanics.  I’m not the only one who appreciates it… the “Dancing Bag” scene from American Beauty is a great example.

So you can imagine how amazed and enthralled I was when Barrett brought this home!!!


Mandelbrot Cauliflower With Barrett

Romanesco Cauliflower With Barrett


This is a Romanesco Cauliflower.  Its pattern resembles a Mandelbrot set which is an equation that defined a group of fractals.

So, not only was I fascinated by this foods sheer visual beauty, I was also immensely curious about its origin and nature.  I immediately took about thirty pictures of it.  I’m including a couple here and hope that Barrett also posts some. (You can click on the pictures to see the full size images!)


Romanesco Cauliflower

Romanesco Cauliflower


The depth of the pattern is mesmerizing.  That is basically  what attracts us to images of fractals.  But when you see them occur in nature – well… that’s when it really blows your mind.  There is some design happening in nature which creates these patterns.  I for one believe it is simply the biochemical signals determined in DNA.   But don’t get me wrong, in my opinion that is no less amazing than some divine power.

The other side of this beauty is the technical…  turns out the mathematics of chaos isn’t really that complicated.  The fundamentals are basically just arithmetic.  While it might make me cross-eyed or give me math anxiety (seriously, I totally get it), I still find it amazing that such complex looking beauty can be very simple.

For example, the  Mandelbrot set (which the Romanesco Cauliflower resembles) is basically defined as:

zn+1 = zn2 + c

So, if C=1, and Z0=1, then the set is: 1, 2, 5, 26, ….  It turns out it’s a little more complicated than this, but not a ton more complicated – though the equations might make it seem that way.

I’ll leave you with one more image of this amazing food!

Oh… and it tasted exactly like a cauliflower.  No different at all.  Yummmmy!


Mandelbrot Cauliflower

Romanesco Cauliflower


Posted under Food, Guest Poster

Nasya and Neti

Posted December 27th, 2009 | 7 Comments » | Bookmark and Share

So, many people know about the wonders of the Neti pot – Oprah’s talked about it, and I’ve blogged about it, so it’s pretty much out there now :)

What’s not so well known is Nasya, and it’s been hugely helpful to me in this very dry start to winter.  Nasya are oil drops that you put in your nose whenever you’re feeling dry. If, like me, you wake up every morning, and your face feels like the Sahara, and you need to drink about 5 glasses of water before you feel like you’re not all dried up from the inside, then Nasya may help.   My nose has been totally dried out, which then leads to an overproduction of mucus throughout the morning, and some really gross nose blowing (when your sinuses and nasal passages get dried out, sometimes the mucus is bloody when you blow your nose.  Yep, too much information, I know).  

You can put any plain oil you’d like in your nose, and it will help with the dryness.  I recommend olive oil or sesame oil.   In Ayurveda  and yoga, however, Nasya is not just used for these medicinal purposes.   Nasya oil has some essential oils infused in it, including the famous Ayurvedic herb Brahmi, as well as Eucalyptus, and the combination together is said to promote awareness and concentration.    

I’m all for more awareness, so I’ve got a yoga tincture from Banyan Botanicals sitting on my desk.  It’s a nice morning ritual along with my several glasses of water.   I’ve found a good combo for me is using the Neti pot a once per week to help ward off flu and colds, and daily Nasya to keep the nasal passages happy.  I recently heard Dr. Oz recommend coating the inside of your nose with Vaseline before flying to eliminate germs coming in through the nose.  I have no idea if it works, but I’ll give it a try next time. 

Finally, I also have a great humidifier that I sleep with at night which has made life a lot better.   I kind of enjoy the white noise of the humidifier, and of course, not feeling like a prune every morning has been a definite bonus.

 Stay well oiled and not dried out this winter time!!  I’d love to write more on Ayurveda (and learn more myself) – anyone else interested in this over the winter?  Let me know!

Barrett

Posted under Education, Health and Wellness

The Yoga Odyssey is taking flight!

Posted December 16th, 2009 | Leave a comment » | Bookmark and Share

Online yoga programs are really starting to get recognized!   On Thanksgiving, a Yoga Journal online article came out featuring the Yoga Odyssey!   It is good timing, because another Yoga Odyssey is right around the corner – starting January 6.   There’s an early registration deadline set for Monday December 21, so sign up now if you’d like to join us in January!

The Yoga Journal article is geared towards yoga teachers, so it talks about taking and also developing an online yoga course.   As this has been one of my main interests for the last 2 years, I was so happy that an article focusing on online yoga has come out!

I recently was talking to Ruth, a yogini who took the Yoga Odyssey about a year ago.   I’ve been amazed while talking to her over the past year, at how much the Yoga Odyssey really stuck with her.   I did a little “interview” with her.  Here are some highlights:

Ruth, who is 59, says, “I am not any kind of a ‘fitness freak’ at all.  I did start doing yoga in the early ’80’s, and have done it off and on since, but never with any true dedication.  It was just one of those things, where I had been talking to a friend and thinking about how I wanted to include more yoga in my life….then happened to read about the Odyssey and i thought, ‘wow, the universe is sending me this sign, just what I needed to give my yoga program a boost.”

Regarding how the month of yoga worked for her, Ruth says, ” It was fun, like having a new happy secret relationship (without the guilt!), to set up my practice space and devote that special morning time to it. Since doing the Odyssey, I pretty much can enjoy/appreciate/use any teacher’s style of yoga or any class situation. If I am tempted to be judgmental of the teacher, the others in the studio, the music or whatever, I just can get right into knowing that its MY practice no matter what. Today, I generally do yoga  5 times a week, and if its a day when I am NOT doing it, I am definitely thinking about it”

I love these words, I think they’re so powerful.  Wouldn’t it be great to give yourself this gift of 28 dedicated days to developing your personal practice?   A year from now, you will still be reaping the benefits of the Yoga Odyssey!

Be well,

Barrett

Posted under Yoga

Staying Healthy

Posted November 23rd, 2009 | 1 Comment » | Bookmark and Share

I’ve gotten some great advice recently about how to stay healthy, and I wanted to pass it along!   Check out my friend Christi’s newsletter about avoiding getting sick this winter.   Christi is an awesome holistic health counselor and I especially like her advice to: not eat sugar, sleep a lot and bulk up on Vitamin D and C!   She has a lot more tips in her newsletter.   

My friend Shea also recently wrote an article for Mindful Mama.  She writes about similar ways to stay healthy and calls them the 3  S’s: enough sleep, lower stress, and less sugar.   Both of these articles raise the important point of not listening to all the fear out there this winter, especially if you’re a parent. 

Of course, I am always a fan of encouraging yoga!  If you *are* stressed about this winter season, practice some deep, slow breathing and hold some of your favorite stretches for a while.   10 minutes of yogic stretching a day can make a world of difference, and probably will help you implement the above advice.  Try these 4 restorative postures from the CorePowerYoga blog.

Finally, the Marino Center sent me a great chart that highlights the difference between cold and flu symptoms. 

FEVER -   Cold: Uncommon   Flu: Common (100 degrees or higher) in 80% of flu cases

COUGH – Cold: Hacking (with mucous) is common    Flu: Dry cough is common

ACHES - Cold: Mildly aches are common   Flu: Severe aches and pains are common

STUFFY NOSE - Cold: Common and resolves within a week  Flu: Uncommon

CHILLS - Cold: Uncommon   Flu: 60% of people with flu experience chills

TIREDNESS - Cold: Mild tiredness  Flu: Moderate to severe fatigue

SNEEZING - Cold: Common  Flu: Uncommon

HEADACHE – Cold: Uncommon Flu: Common

SORE THROAT - Cold: Common   Flu: Common

CHEST DISCOMFORT - Cold: Mild to moderate   Flu: Often severe

ONSET OF SYMPTOMS - Cold: Symptoms occur a few days after exposure    Flu: Rapid onset within 3-6 hours

Posted under Health and Wellness, Yoga

Thursday Thankfulness – One Week Until…

Posted November 19th, 2009 | 3 Comments » | Bookmark and Share

I’ve been thinking about Thankfulness, even if I haven’t been writing about it.  There’s been so much to be thankful for over the last several months!  Here’s some highlights, one for every day between now and Thanksgiving (only one week until Tofurky Day!!).

1)      We were featured in the Top 50 Yoga Blogs!!  Check it out, and find some other blogs worth reading!

2)      The weather – I’m still able to exercise outside!  Last night, several of us were waiting for the studio to open and someone commented that it was getting a little chilly, but still we were all so grateful that we could be outside without gloves and hats and be comfortable!

3)      Vitamin D!  In my recent checkup, I was on the borderline of being deficient.  I did some research, and did you know that taking adequate amounts of Vitamin D might help you avoid or get over the flu more quickly?  Talk to your doctor about how much Vitamin D3 you should take to prevent or treat the flu.

4)      Facebook.   We can waste time on Facebook, I know, but it’s a great place for me to learn what friends and family are up to.   Plus, they post awesome things.   Just today, a yoga student of mine posted this from the Positivity Blog: 5 Things You Can Do Today to Change your Life.

5)      Weddings – we went to 7 in the last 6 months!  It was really fun (and only a little tiring).  I laughed, danced and cried a lot!  It’s been great to spend quality time with all my friends and family.   In fact, we had such a good time, we decided to get married ourselves :)

6)      Backbends!   Loving wheel pose!   If you’re struggling with this pose, try using blocks, pictured below.

Wheel Pose blocks under feetWheel Pose blocks under hands

7)      Finally, I want to give thanks to you, my dear yogis!!  Thank you for practicing, thank you for attending class and taking my online programs, and thank you for reading!

I got up this morning and the first thing I thought was, “I love what I’m doing in the world.”

Yay,

Barrett

Posted under Personal Experiences, Yoga

Online World of Yoga

Posted November 11th, 2009 | 1 Comment » | Bookmark and Share

Well, I’m back.  Whew!   I had quite a month with a spectacularly fun Yoga Odyssey all of October.   Unfortunately, I also had some crazy stuff go on, including lots of travelling and my laptop getting stolen while travelling (and my Ipod – oh my lord do I miss my music!).

I’m back in the driver’s seat now, and really looking forward to the next several months, writing and getting ready for my next Yoga Odyssey (in January!).

One of the things about this last Odyssey is that I’ve been enjoying more and more online yoga resources.  I’m hoping to compile more of a list on this blog of my favorite yoga blogs.  I’d love to hear what you all like.

As I’m coming back into writing on the blog, I immediately went to some of my favorite blogs to get into the spirit of writing again.  And I looked to Yogajournal.com – they’ve got so much online.   I’m wondering why I keep up my print subscription!  It all ends up online eventually.

Here’s a quick video from a favorite teacher of mine – David Swenson.   He talks about overcoming resistance to practicing.   This is such a theme of our month-long Odyssey that it resonated with me.  I wanted to share it!

When I’m vacillating on whether or not to practice (or exercise), I try to remind myself that I’m always happy I did it.   You never regret a practice, which Swenson mentions as well.

Get on the mat, and enjoy!

Barrett

Posted under Yoga

The 5 Prana Vayus – A Guest Post

Posted September 29th, 2009 | Leave a comment » | Bookmark and Share

Boston-area yoga teacher Erica Magliaro is writing in with a guest post!

She went down to Costa Rica awhile back at my suggestion to study with our teachers, Don and Amba Stapleton, and she came back a fabulous yoga teacher!

She’s offering classes in Brookline, and also Pranassage, which is yummy yoga massage. Check out her website for details.

—-

Ever find yourself in pigeon pose, jaw clenched, shoulders tense, unable to relax?
What about lying in savasana, trying to focus but instead mulling over your last conversation with your boss or your significant other?

My teacher has always said, ‘Where the mind goes, Prana flows’, but what happens when we get stuck?  Sometimes we find ourselves unable to release physically and/or mentally.    Even as a yoga teacher, I can be as guilty of this as the next person….so when I get stuck, I like to remind myself of Prana at work:

Prana is our life force, the energy that flows through our bodies.  It is broken down into five forces, called the Prana Vayus:

1)  Apana is the downward moving energy in our bodies, grounding us.  Gravity is a simple example of apana.

2)  The next force of Prana is prana (lower-case ‘p’), which is the upward moving energy, or buoyancy, that counter-acts apana.  For me, I can really feel apana and prana at work in Tree Pose…being grounded in the feet, roots growing through the earth…but the buoyancy and lift of the body skywards.

3)  Samana is the third force of Prana, spiraling at our belly center.  It represents the energy of absorption, the fire of digestion, either physical and emotional.  This could be undigested lunch, or a difficult conversation you can’t get out of your head!

4)  Udana is the next force of Prana, representing the energy of sound and communication, giving us the ability to express our experience.

5)  Last but not least is vyana.  Vyana corresponds to the energy pathways in our body, connecting us to ourselves and to others.

I’ve been fortunate enough to fully experience Prana through the giving and receiving of Pranassage, an amazing blend of assisted yoga and massage.  The whole idea is that through touch, pressure, and postures, Prana is made easier to feel, allowing us to truly let go into deep relaxation with awareness of our experience.

So the next time you find yourself clenching in a pose or being distracted, try to remind yourself that it’s okay to let go and focus on the present moment…..allowing Prana to flow.

Namaste,

Erica

The 5 Prana Vayus

The 5 Prana Vayus

Posted under Guest Poster, Local Interest, Personal Experiences, Yoga, Yoga Philosophy

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