Five Points Yoga

What is that quintessential Savasana feeling?

I just got home from a week long vacation, in which I did very little yoga.  I couldn’t wait to get into a routine at home again, including a regular yoga practice.   I rolled out my mat on Sunday afternoon, and just fell on it in happiness.  After about 30 minutes on the mat, I took my first Savasana (did you know you can do that??  Multiple rest and relaxations in your yoga practice??)

The feeling was exquisite.   Everything in my body was vibrating!  It felt so good to physically notice my toes, to feel the weight of my body sinking into the ground, to imagine my imprint on the earth as I let go.   Because I had just been on vacation, I wasn’t yet thinking about lists of to-dos.    So, even though I was on the clock, having to teach in an hour or so, I felt delicious.   I could just float through and on the sensations of deep relaxation.

My teacher Don has a phrase that he says during Savasana: “Notice any pulsing, tingling, streaming sensations.”   I’ll use this occasionally in class, and I also try to come up with other evocative language.   If you’re at all a “word” person, then it will be worth your while to notice the words and phrases that work for you in your yoga practice, whether you hear them from  a teacher or come up with them yourself.  The words that came up during this Savasana were “thrumming” and “vibrating.”

I had a sense of deep well-being.   At one point, I was saying Well-Being over and over, which is really nice if you think about it.  Smiling and sighing a lot (you know how much I encourage that if you go to my class).

Afterwards, it felt so clear to me *why* yoga makes such a difference.   When you have that experience as part of the back drop of your day, you can draw on it to help you with difficult situations.   Instead of reacting in anger or defensiveness, you might be able to take a deep breath, feel compassion, and try a different, more effective tack.   That’s what happened to me!  It was wonderful to know that my yoga practice was good for me, and for the others around me who benefitted from a more soothing response from me.

They say the effects of yoga practice last for about 48 hours.   I think that’s more or less true – of course we’re all different, and so are our yoga practices!   But if you can give yourself a little yoga (WITH Savasana of course) at least every other day, I think you’ll notice some changes, both on and off the mat.

Happy to be back!

Barrett

lululemon picture

I got married!!  Hence, my hiatus here on the blog and in my monthly newsletters!

A lot of people give advice when you’re getting married, and I found it breaks down into equal thirds.   1/3 of the advice is complete bollucks, 1/3 is good advice that you’re not going to take because it’s too late or doesn’t apply to you, and 1/3 of it is something you end up using.

The best advice we got?   Try to be in the moment!!   So many people told us the wedding would be a blur.   Several women told us that they were still so busy coordinating on the day of the wedding that they weren’t really present.  Lots of people said we NEEDED to have a videographer because that’s the only way we’d remember the wedding.

That was some bullocks for us – no video needed!  Instead, we planned a lot and worked hard.  For the actual weekend, Gadi and I were really *present* and the whole experience blew my mind.    Lots of others seemed to have a great time too, which was nice, but it ROCKED for us.  I remember everything so vividly!  Of course, we’re also trying to write everything down and collect pictures from everyone, because we know someday we will start to forget.

Interesting right?   That was what a lot of people missed about their own wedding experience – being in the moment – being present.   For me, even though there was very little yoga asana happening in the week leading up to our extravaganza, we tried every night to debrief with each other and really soak it all in.   It felt for me like a lot of my yoga training came into play each day in order to go with the flow of it all.

At 2am the night before our wedding, when I couldn’t sleep, I finally turned to the mat, and it felt SO good to breathe deeply.   In general, the times when I feel most present in my life are on the mat or in the studio teaching.   It’s a really familiar touchstone at this point.   I knew in that moment on the mat, in the middle of the night, in a hotel room, the day before my wedding, that everything would be fine. Even if I was only getting a few hours of sleep before the marathon day of getting married (I had a good makeup artist to hide the circles if need be!).

Thanks to everyone for your advice, even if I didn’t take it Hearing about other’s experiences was enough for us to really plan out our weekend so that we could be there with people who’d traveled hundreds (and thousands) of miles to be with us.   And so we could really be there with each other, in the moment, as we made a big commitment!   It was, for sure, a high moment in our lives!

Just married!!

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  

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.

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

When I want to move and get things going in my yoga practice, my go-to series of asanas is the Sun Salutations.   You can be really creative with the sun salutes, so they’re never really boring.

However, they can be repetitive, and for some people, they can lead to injuries if done over and over the wrong way.  So, I’ve been thinking about ways to warm up without doing a sun salute.  I’ve been loving Chair Pose (Utkatasana) and any other postures that use the big muscles of the legs and buttocks (Hello, Warriors and Bridge!).   I also love to get upside down – inversions can really heat you up – and to practice other arm balances, like Crow pose (Bakasana).  I’ve also been trying to use my core, and often warming up with Boat pose (Navasana). 

I’m thinking about making a podcast of warm ups without Sun Salute.  Anyone interested?  

Just yesterday, I saw this amazing video.   It definitely looks like a warm up! This dance is based on the sun salutations, but includes much of what I mentioned above – arm balances, inversions, tons of core strength, and an amazing amount of variation with the two dancers interacting. 

 Variations on Surya Namaskara

I’m inspired to go practice now!

Barrett