Do you really want to use a calculator for that?

My daughter Lucia is learning Algebra right now. She's forever trying to figure out what 92 is divisible by or if 3X=194, is there a remainder.... There is so much she doesn't know, so much she has to parse apart to get to an answer. Once, after Lucia went to bed, I tried to do her math-- without a calculator-- and it was truly work for me. My math muscles have most definitely atrophied since fourth grade.

For those of you who have taken my class, you know that I draw some hard lines with Standing Head to Knee Pose. For many reasons, I feel 100% committed to teaching this posture really true to form. For one, it is really hard to balance when the posture's foundation is compromised (bent standing knee); two, you could hurt your back if you don't have proper alignment and a solid foundation; and three (and most important), if you skip the hard work to get through the steps of the posture, you've missed the most important part of the posture! Last week I said to one class, "Kicking out on a bent knee is like doing math with a calculator!"

But still I see it every day, people kicking out on a bent knee, or bending their elbows with a bent knee, even trying to touch forehead to knee with two bent knees! If you are a regular practitioner, you know what  I'm talking about. I know this shortcutting I see is just human nature. People are excited to "get there", to that final position of the posture. That's only natural; we are trained from toddlerhood to get to the finish line, to make the goal, to hit a home run.

In Yoga we are practicing a different paradigm. It's not the end point, it is the process of getting there.  In the process, our muscles develop, both physically and mentally. In Standing Head to Knee Pose, our quads strengthen and new neural pathways get established, but only if we give them the time and space to do the work.

It is so like Lucia doing her math. I've watched over these three months of fourth grade: the first week complete confusion over what an integer is; how the heck long division makes sense; those pesky word problems! Day in and day out though, math homework comes home and Lucia struggles with these problems from the beginning, sometimes going back a unit to refresh certain concepts, but she's getting stronger and more solid in her math practice.

Some days when I practice Standing Head to Knee and my back feels good and my knees are happy,  I can kick out and hold my form. Other days, I'm not so strong, or my muscles are tight, or I have an injury, and I have to back track, refrain from kicking out first set, or maybe both sets. Every time I do the pose, I have to connect with what my body knows, what part of the posture is clicking into place, before I move onto the next part of the posture. Only then will I be able to get to the next part of the equation.

In not taking shortcuts, in not assuming our bodies "know it all" every time we practice, we're basically choosing not to use a calculator to get the final answer. We're choosing to use opportunities to build our strength, to learn new things, to uncover what we don't know.

A different kind of mirror

I spend a lot of time looking in the mirror. In Bikram Yoga, looking in the mirror is a big part of practice. What I love about it is that, because so much else is going on,  it feels very different from normal looking in the mirror. It's more like seeing or witnessing. When I have been in my greatest depths of sorrow-- a break up I was sure I would never survive, the death of my Nana who made me feel more special than anyone else in the world, post-partum blues-- the mirror, like my trusted friends and confidants, was a place to just see myself as I was. I could bring myself to the mirror in whatever state I was in for that moment.

Last night we had a big SweatBox fundraiser. It was incredibly vulnerable and I was painfully nervous to get in front of all of these people from whom I needed something.  Earlier that day one of my students said, "Laura, why are you nervous, your JOB is speaking in front of people." But this was different. I am usually the one who is giving to this crowd, teaching and offering my love and support to my beloved students. Last night the tables were turned. When I got up to do the little schpeel, I was voice-shaking nervous.  And then I saw all of those faces, familiar faces, filled with love, not judging not criticizing, but loving! I could see it in their eyes, in their smiles. I could feel the energy in the room, and it was calm and comforting and LOVING.

The room of bad-ass Yogis became my mirror. They were there for me, supporting me in my nervous state, my vulnerable state. And maybe I was boring or irrelevant or tangential, but it didn't matter. What I got from the audience mirror was what I get from the mirror when I practice-- a witness to who I am, however I am. What a gift.  Thank you everyone.

Your body is an ecosystem

Last night my friend Alia, who is a nutritionist and a yogini and a dancer and a mother, not necessarily in that order, said "I think of the human body as an ecosystem." She was talking about one of her passions, nutrition. She talked about many other cool concepts related to the gut and our health and how we process proteins and all kinds of things I could have listened to for hours, but it was this idea of the body as an ecosystem, a tiny little complex planet, that lodged in my brain.

I looked up "Ecosystem" this morning. One definition is: "a complex network or interconnected system."  Another: "a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment." When Alia was using "Ecosystem" as a metaphor, she explained that, just like the earth needs to find balance, so do our bodies. The oil spills, the plastics leaching into our water and soil, deforestation, all of these things are leading us to a frightening imbalance in our ecosystem.

I don't have a fraction of the knowledge that Alia has about nutrition or the digestive and elimination systems, nor am I an expert on the delicate nature of balancing our earth. But I am committed to finding balance, both as a student and a teacher in the Yoga room.

When you think about the body as an ecosystem, you have to include the mind. And yoga, of course, means "union" or connection, between the body and the mind. In practice, it is easy to focus just on the asanas--  are my shoulders level, can I balance for one whole minute, is my spine straight? But there is so much more. We are each a complete ecosystem, most of us rife with pollutants. The body, the mind, the heart, all the energy swimming through our bodies is interconnected. Everything must work with everything else to make balance.

For me, the pollutants that inhabit my ecosystem come in the form of coffee, poor night's sleep, too much screen time, shabby diet, a terribly busy life. I need to practice regularly to counter the energy that comes from being who I am, how I am. Sometimes when I practice, I am mentally hijacked- worried, stressed, tingling with nervous and chaotic energy. On those days, when the toxins originate in my mental and emotion body, I know that the most immediate path to balancing my ecosystem is to bust my own ass physically. I know that process will clean out some of the pollution. I need to work so hard that every thought, every fiber in my body is channeled into my practice so my mind, the part of my ecosystem that is nearing dangerous levels of contamination, can get a break. 

Other days, in less stressful times, when my mind quieter, cleaner, my brain chatter a little bit less active, I have mental energy to practice differently. I can be more focused on the nuances of each asana, trusting that my brain won't take me to judgement or competition or other sentiments that inevitably lead me outside of my practice. My body still gets the physical practice; the process of balancing my ecosystem is still happening, but from a slightly different angle. On days like this, balance comes from drawing a little more from the mental part of my ecosystem.

Everyday when you practice Yoga, your little world needs something different. The end result is the same- balance. 

Change is gradual. Until it's sudden

Change is gradual. Until it's sudden. All my life I have been athletic. I started swimming competitively when I was five and practiced multiple times a week until I was 17. By that time I was fully identified as a good swimmer, a really good swimmer, sometimes a great swimmer. When I went to college, I stopped practicing. I was tired of swimming, tired of competing, tired of being "a swimmer." I gave up that feeling of being proficient, good at something for smoking cigarettes and eating bad dorm food. During my sophomore year in college I moved off campus. Occasionally I would visit the pool at my university and attempt a workout from the olden days, but it was always unsatisfying. I wasn't really a swimmer any more. I didn't fit with the competitive bodies still actively participating in my old sport. I was an outsider.

Despite my attempt at a new identity- "smoking, quad-sitting co-ed", my body still craved exercise. So, I ran. I ran in the park near my new apartment off campus. I never ran very far, and I was inconsistent. After my daughter Lucia was born I inherited a baby jogger and I forged a plan to run off my baby bulge by running a half-marathon. I ran, but not that far. During that period in college and post part, I lost patience with how hard it was to improve. After having been so strong at another sport, I couldn't abide the pace it was taking to improve. I never got to the point where I was when I was a swimmer. That was twenty-five years ago and, in fits and starts I have always run a little bit at different stages of my life.

When I started practicing Bikram Yoga in 1994, I felt fulfilled physically. And I became more nourished mentally and emotionally than I ever was as a swimmer. In the last five years, for myriad reasons, I started running again--- a group of friends and I wanted to do a triathlon, I wanted to be outside more, my friend Kate invited me to run with her. At first my running felt very much like it had during college or after Lucia was born-- half-baked and noncommittal.  But then after a few years, I started noticing that running felt easier, more fun. I set some goals, I made some personal distance records, and I kept going. After all these years, I was finally noticing some change.

Last week my running buddy Kate and I went for a run to the lake. It was 28 degrees out and windy. We set out for our six-mile loop through and around Seward Park, eyes watering from the cold and wind. "I actually feel like a runner." I said to Kate, "When we started running before the triathlon, I never thought it would feel like this." Kate squeeled in agreement , "IIIIIII know!" It can take years, decades, a lifetime for a body to change, a mind to change, a life to change. And then, in one joyous moment, you notice it. Change is gradual. Until it's sudden.

Yoga is the gateway drug to joy

Last week when I taught my Roots of Empathy class, I asked my 3rd and 4th graders what they think comforts a baby. When they came up blank, I shared that when my daughter was tiny, turning on the hair dryer immediately calmed her down. The gentle hum of the hair dryer sounds very similar to the hushing sound babies hear in utero. As we develop-- from infant to toddler to child to teenager to adult--- finding the thing that comforts us, brings us that calm, gets more and more elusive. For me, the one constant thing that's offered me comfort like this over the last two decades is Yoga.

But every couple of years,  I get slightly dormant in my Yoga practice. I practice less, and I'm not fully there mentally when I do practice. When I come out of hibernation from my Yoga strike, it is like I've discovered a whole new world. The rush comes right back!

When I am doing a regular Yoga practice, I feel so much happier. My body needs it. I have tight, tight muscles, maybe from my years of swimming or maybe from my newfound love of running, or maybe because I'm an uptight neurotic human. Regardless, I have a body that needs Yoga to stay pain free (maybe everyone does).

My mind needs it. I am a person whose brain goes ALL the time. Not in a bad way, although sometimes the activity can make me feel simultaneously like throwing up and passing out.  I very rarely take time to settle. I need a place to quiet down. That happens for me in the yoga room. My body becomes bigger than my brain and my breath becomes louder than my internal voice(s).

Spiritually, I need yoga. It makes me happy, hopeful, joyful. It is a place where I feel there is something bigger, better, stronger, than me. I feel lighter, held in a way that I rarely feel in other areas of my life. Yoga is my gateway drug to joy.

The joy doesn't come right away, except in the form of endorphins (which are definitely a kind of joy). It comes over time. You start to appreciate you body more, your strength, your flexibility, your intention in your practice. Then you notice how you are actually a little bit quiet mentally in Savasana. Oh, what a relief to have that peace. And then, maybe after years, or decades, you notice that your heart sings a little bit when you practice. All layers combine to bring a sense of joy. And then, for some random reason, you take a break from Yoga. You have an affair with Crossfit or spinning or knitting! But when you come back, the feelings are all there. And it doesn't take long until you're addicted. Again.

Open your Armpits

As we approach Thanksgiving, I am trying to remember to be grateful and thankful daily. One of the things I am so grateful for is the Lake (Washington). It is one of my greatest sources of calm and inspiration. I see it everyday and I run on it often.

The distance from my house to Seward Park, once around the loop and back, if you take just the right extra turns and jogs in the path, is a little over 5 miles. Outside of a slightly longer run that goes through the inner trails, this is my favorite catharsis.  My ritual is to put on my Strava (I'm slightly OCD about mileage), tune Songza to inspirational pop favorites, and run down the hill to the lake.

This afternoon, after a hard interaction with my daughter that left me feeling a little depressed, I knew running would be the antidote to my sorrows. The tip of Seward Park is the half-way point of my run. It's also a popular spot for people to sit on the benches and look out at the lake and across to Mercer Island. Today, as I approached the tip, the clouds were pink, the lake was completely placid and there were a handful of people with their dogs standing, looking at a flock of birds floating on the lake. Everything and everyone was still, even the dogs.

As I approached this idyllic scene, Flo-Rida's "Good Feeling" was playing and I was running at a pretty good pace. I felt SO happy, so energized! The combination of everything was overwhelmingly peaceful and beautiful. I found myself raising my arms over my head with glee. I read recently that one of BKS Iyengar's students heard him say, "If you open your armpits, you'll never get depressed." That thought came into my head as I ran, arms spread, for a few paces.

The remaining miles home were equally blissful. Seattle, and the area around Seward Park where the lake dominates the view for miles, is perfect. People rowing crew, fishermen, eternally hopeful, happy couples walking together, finding time that will make everything better, bikers in their colorful clown-garb, runners, like me, bouncing with happiness at the scene. Open your armpits. And get a good feeling.

GOLDEN BIRTHDAY, MAGIC BATHROOMS, and LOVE

Life offers us a variety of dishes--- some are delicious, tasty, at the very least, palatable. And some are horrible, tasteless, bitter, even rotten. As many of you know, The SweatBox is currently in the process of digesting a rather unsavory meal. We've hit hard times and are working our best to move through it, to get to the other side, to a place where things taste good again.

When things get hard, or uncomfortable, unpalatable, for many of us, the tendency is to move out of the way, to get to another space. I have wanted many times, during this last spell of incessant construction that's smothering our studios, to flee, to drop everything and become a kindergarten teacher.  It's hard, it's uncomfortable, it's sucky. And, there is another side.

A few months ago when I was teaching, I noticed that lots of people were going to the bathroom. I'd notice the same people going, at the same times, during each class. One day, in an effort to be more empathetic, more open-minded than usual, I took some time to really think about why these students were in this pattern. It occurred to me that they must believe that something will happen, change, disappear in the bathroom.  I said, "Did y'all know that there is nothing magic in the bathroom?" "Chuckle chuckle", went the class. "The magic is on your mat" I said, "it lives in you, not in the bathroom."

Tomorrow, November 14th, 2014, The SweatBox will officially turn 13 years old! That means that next year, November 14th, 2015, we will be 14 years old. For those of you who don't know, when you turn your age on the date of your birthday, it is considered your GOLDEN BIRTHDAY.  That's pretty special, and it is a good reminder for me to persevere through these hard times. For thirteen years, over 30,000 students have graced us with their presence, every single one bringing with them a little bit of magic! The magic of our studios, thanks to all of you, still lives at The SweatBox. And even though we're struggling financially and are, for the first time, reaching out for help, we still feel it.

When I think about throwing in the sweat-drenched towel, I think about all of the magic years of The SweatBox. Thirteen years, approaching the golden age! Sure I want to go to the bathroom and find something new different, magical. Who wouldn't?! I'm not going to though. I'm not going anywhere. We're not going anywhere. We're going to ride this challenge, hold on tight, and get to the other side. We'll do what we need to because we've got all of your magic driving us to the other side.
This is going to be a great birthday!We sincerely thank you all.

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