WEEK FIVE OF YAMA THERAPUTIC YOGA TEACHER TRAINING (YTT)

WEEK FIVE OF YAMA THERAPUTIC YOGA TEACHER TRAINING (YTT)

 

We start each YTT with asana. Afterwards, we discuss how we feel after yoga. I normally do not think about how I feel after yoga. I just enjoy it. 

 

It is interesting to think about the effects my yoga practice. As I think about it, I feel like my breath is flowing slower and more evenly after yoga. My mind is more still as well. I can think about my thoughts rather than fight to organize them. My feet and toes are more relaxed, but my ankle and tendon are sore. I have tendonitis that is irritated by yoga. 

 

We then talked about creating our own practice, the importance of setting up a place and time to practice, and the benefits of yoga. There are so many benefits gained from yoga: 1) increased energy; 2) increased trust; 3) increased flexibility; 4) increased physical strength; 5) increased focus; 6) relieved pain, and so forth.

 

For me, yoga is about leaving the present and going on a spiritual and physical journey. . . .

 

“Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth... This is the real message of love.”

― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Teachings on Love

 

We then talked about Centering, the beginning of the class that sets the intention of the practice. Centering helps bring me to a state of calm and allows me to make the transition from being externally focused to being internally focused. Centering can generally take five to ten minutes. I find that if the centering is too long I lose focus and start to feel restless, just the opposite of how I want to feel in yoga. It makes me feel like I am being cheated from my yoga class. 

 

I love the physical part of yoga. I think it is also important to read your students and cater to what is appropriate for them.

 

We also talked about yoga "off the mat". Yoga off the mat is just as healing and powerful as yoga on the mat. Off the matt, I try to lead a life of kindness to myself and others. As I think about it, my favorite yoga teachers have a calming presence that make me want to be around them. People tell me that I have a calming presence and they call me Miss Positive!  I trust the Universe will provide me with what I need to be a good person.

 

“Radical Acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our lives as it is.”

― Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

 

“The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open to the vulnerability of our own hearts. Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way.”

― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

 

From a yoga perspective, I think about the Yamas and Nymas to guide me in practicing yoga off the mat.

 

THE YAMAS

My attitude and relationship to the world and how I stay in harmony with myself and others:

Ahimsa – non-violence

Satya – honesty

Asteya – non-stealing

Bramacharya – appropriate use of energy

Aparigarah – non grasping, not being greedy

 

THE NIYAMAS

How I take care of myself:

Saucha – purity, cleanliness of our bodies and minds inside and out

Santosha - contentment

Tapas – the fire in me, self discipline, eat well, practice chakra healing

Svadyaya - self study, self inquiry

Ishvara Pranidana – turning over to the divine, yielding to the power of the universe

 

We covered stress and the physical effects it has on our mind and body:

“How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”

“When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.”  

― Wayne W. Dyer

 

“When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.”

― Thích Nhất Hạnh

 

I will write a separate blog about my thoughts on stress. I feel we often choose whether or not to be stressed. Stay tuned…

EXPLORING THE KOSHAS

EXPLORING THE KOSHAS

We covered the Koshas back in week three of Yoga teacher Training (YTT). The Koshas are the physical and mental aspects of our personality and our being. Yoga helps us harness that energy. At that time, I was overwhelmed with so much information that I really did not internalize what they meant to me.  Now, I realize that if I create change in any one these dimensions, it invariably affects the other dimensions. Every day, I move within my Koshas without even having to think about it. I have learned that if I play and move in one level, it either helps me get unstuck or gets me stuck in another level, depending on my attitude.

 

Before studying this, I had never heard about koshas, so I thought it would be interesting to write about them. For me, these principles apply to things that I knew were in my body as I look back on it. I just did not have a handle on them and I did not know that there are yoga poses that reach the different koshas. I will explore that later.

 

Koshas are layers of energy that start with our physical body and move inward to our conscious and subconscious mind.

 

Anamayakosha is our physical body. "Ana" means "food", "maya" means "consists of", and "kosha" means "covering". The physical body is pretty obvious, but how we care for it is not always important to us.  I have learned to love and respect my body. I want it to be there for me for a long time.

 

Pranamayakosha is living energy inside my body like prana (our breath), vayus, nadis, chakras "Prana" means "life force". We take in prana as energy. The process of moving prana into waste is called apana it has to move down to get out. Vayus are the process of movement of energy. Suka is good space and dukha is bad space or waste. The koshas talk about our body and energy from the outside in. Although the chakras are inside our body, their energy is both outside our body as well as inside. Our energy radiates all around inside and outside of our body. Pranamayakosha is harnessing that energy inside us. I cannot talk about energy without mentioning Qigong. Qigong dives deep into the study of the energy inside and outside of our bodies. I love Lee Holden, a master qigong instructor. Qigong  describes our body energy in fascinating ways. The breath is a big part of pranamayakosha. I am going to write a blog about breath and some interesting things I have learned and observed.

 

This link will teach you more about qigong. www.healingqigong.org.

 

“Prana  is to a body what gas is to a car, electricity to a light bulb, and wind to a windmill.”                       
Amy Weintraub

Manomayakosha is a more subtle aspect of ourselves; it is our thinking being. "Mano" means "mind". Manomayakosha is how we react to situations or conditions to which we are exposed: do we get stressed or not, should I stay or should I flee, etc…. It is here I remember to practice radical acceptance. I think, on a certain level, we choose to be stressed or upset by what life throws at us.

Vijnyanamayakosha – is our wisdom body. Vijny involves our ability to discriminate. It is what enables us to witness harmful or hurtful things we do to ourselves and others and learn to change them. We discern what is good for us and what is not. We decide to accept or judge ourselves. I find that many people use this kosha in self-destructive ways rather than productive and kind ways. If you have not already discovered this, I love Tara Brach; if you think you need help being kinder to yourself, check her web page; Tarabrach.com. Also the ability to accept what is true and what is not true or the ability to recognize what is wise and what is not wise.

 

Anandamayakosha – is being in a state of bliss with Ananda meaning 

"pleasure".  This state is attained when all the other Koshas are at peace.

 

The kosha model helps us see the direction in which we are moving. We want to make all of these levels transparent. My thoughts are: eat well, take care of my body, stay in tune with my energy inside and keep those channels open. I tune into my emotional self and be kind to myself and others I feel the joy inside of me.

 

Stay tuned for my next YTT adventure.

YOGA 200 HOUR TEACHER TRAINING WEEK 5

The Yamas & Niyamas are yoga's ten ethical guidelines and they comprise the first two limbs of the eight limbs (paths) of yoga.

As yogies we focus on the Yamas & Niyamas, but really everyone could benefit from most of the principals without getting into too much yoga karma. They are similar to the 10 commandments or Buddhists Eight Precepts. The Yamas are guidelines on how we should live our life and treat others. I like to think that these paths represent my attitude and how I treat myself and others. I was doing this stuff way before I started my Yoga Teacher Training. I think that following these guidelines will make us better kinder people.

As yoga teachers we need to think about how we interact with our students. In our own lives we have to be true to our self.  The second Yama is Sayta (truthfulness).

When I first started thinking about truthfulness I thought honesty is mandatory.  Or else you are a LYER!  Now I feel differently. When I was a child I used to tell on myself if I got caught misbehaving in class. I could not hold it in.  I am very honest. I do not make up stories or tell untruths. It is my nature to be truthful. It makes me feel sick at my stomach when I know someone is purposely not telling the truth. I think in these situations telling the truth is pretty basic we should be truthful.

Is withholding the truth ever ok? Sometimes it is and sometimes it is not. I think that sometimes I am to blunt and may say things that I do not need to say. I am going to change that now. I before I tell someone what I think I am going to try to stop and ask myself is it true or is this opinion. Then think about if they need to know or would benefit from knowing what I am thinking. Will they feel a positive or will they feel hurt? If it will not help them or is not kind then I will hold back. I think this is a time when to be sure I am not passive aggressive.

As a yoga teacher I am sure I will have the opportunity to practice Sayta and give kind gentle advice or hold back my opinion.

“Before you speak ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, it is true, does it improve upon the silence?”  Shirdi Sai Baba

If you would like to read more about the 8 limbs of yoga. Please see this link from Yoga Journal.

http://www.yogajournal.com/basics/158

YAMA THERAPUTICS 200 HOUR YOGA TEACHER TRAINING WEEK 4

I loved this class! Currently, I am more drawn to the physical aspect than the spiritual aspect of my teacher training.  I am pretty centered spiritually. I have been learning about Radical Acceptance from Tara Brach (tarabrach.com) for several years. There is so much I need to learn about my physical body (Anamayakosha). I know that for me to feel confident to teach yoga, I will need to know as much as I can about the physical aspects of yoga.

In class, we learned about Compression, Tension, Proportion and Orientation. We also learned about the 8 major joints where compression is going to occur and how that affects our position and orientation in the Asanas.

We watched a video from Paul Grilley about the 8 major Joints. He sells a DVD called The Bare Bones of Yoga. You can purchase the video on line.

http://www.pranamaya.com/online-courses/the-bare-bones-of-yoga.html

This is a video clip from Paul about shoulder movement I found on Facebook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve_GUyEHdfI

I think this information is fascinating!

This is another link from the Anatomy Studies for Yoga Teachers. This article will familiarize you with the language of movement and orientation.

http://www.asfyt.com/the-language-of-movement/

It is important to know the difference between compression and Tension. I found that Paul Grilley explains it perfectly:

Some yoga postures stress the joints of the body to stimulate their strength and flexibility. There are two fundamentally different types of stress: tension and compression. Yogis need to know the difference between the two.

Tension is the familiar sensation of tissues being stretched. Compression is the sensation of tissues being pressed or pushed together. Both of these stresses are beneficial if done in moderation.  

When a yogi is stretching a joint, he is stretching a ligament, a tendon, or both. When a yogi is compressing a joint, he is compressing bones.

In his video, Paul discussed the 8 major joints of the body. He showed how our joints (the way our body is built) affect our movement. I found this fascinating. He showed that being “bendy” is not just about flexible muscles, that at some point movement will be limited by our joints.

The eight joints he talked about were Wrists, Elbow, Shoulder, Neck, Spine, Hips, Knees and Ankles.

In his video, he featured a lady who could put her head between her knees when she bent over in forward bend, but could not put her heels on the floor on down dog, because her ankles joints were limiting her. The video I attached illustrates how your shoulder joints affect poses like wheel.

In class, we talked about noticing what may be limiting someone from being in the classic alignment for a pose and whether or not to adjust them. We discussed how someone might be just fine without putting their heels flat on the floor in down dog. There are plenty of instances when it is best to let someone be where they are in their pose.

I considered this and then contemplated the energy you could use to adjust someone. I find that the adjustments I like the most involves pull energy as opposed to push energy. I like adjustments where the teacher uses his or her body to support you as they guide you into alignment. I certainly do not like it when a teacher simply wants to press into my joints.

This is essentially what Eric Shiftman says in his book, Moving Into Stillness, about Playing The Edge.

The main thing to understand is that there is no such thing as a "completed" or "ideal" posture. Each posture is an ever-evolving, constantly moving energy phenomenon that is different from day to day, moment to moment, and person to person. The process of sensitively flirting with your edges and achieving perfect energy flow is not merely the means to achieve the pose - it is the pose.

This is what the physical aspect of yoga is fundamentally all about. Your body is limited in movement not only through its genetic makeup, but through the conditionings that have accrued over the years. As you age, this becomes more and more apparent. Yoga is a way of exploring these limits. It's not a matter of "How can I attain this or that final posture?" It's a matter of gently pressing into the various edges you encounter within the template structure of each particular posture. And your edges and limits will change as a by-product of this exploration; you will change.

I will be back next week with more YTT!

Namaste!

Franny