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Wavers

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:29:04 GMT

I have been deeply inspired by anatomy as of late, bringing in books, notes, and sharing from my experiences of seeing what is underneath the flesh, after my dissection workshop with Gil Hedley. Today I started class by inviting everyone to "Gather around and look at this great picture of a cadaver's upper back musculature." I have Rohen & Yokochi's "Color Atlas of Anatomy" which is replete with photographs of the human body. I wanted the students to see how muscle fibers, just like fascia, have lines that are neither vertical nor horizontal but diagonal. We have often heard that there are no straight lines in nature. But to see this inside the body is a true gift that reassures us into the knowledge that life is spiraling, eternally moving, and ever-shifting experience. Here is a quote from "The Endless Web: Fascial Anatomy and Physical Reality" by R. Louis Schultz and Rosemary Feitis: "In looking at the connective tissue arrangement in dissections of human bodies, we noted that there was seldom a linear (vertical or horizontal) arrangement of connective tissue fibers on the surface or deep within the body."

In my many years of teaching I have witnessed how we yogis have a tendency to hold our poses with a lot of muscular strength. There is even a traditional view from Classical Yoga which states that according to Patanjali, yoga is the "cessation of the fluctuations of the mind."In other words: hold still your thoughts, still your body, still yourself. Although the idea is helpful, it often makes us too rigid in the way we end up holding ourselves in space and in the space of our minds.

Lately after my studies of dissection, as well as my resignation from Anusara Yoga, I have been examining everything: my teachers, the language of yoga that I use in classes and the way I practice. I have slowly been adding some changes to my practice, like:

*What if I included my skin as I breathed?

*What if I allowed myself to waver in the poses?

* What if instead of "coming up into cobra" I zigzagged my way up into the pose, instead of rising in a rush?

*What if I remembered that yoga poses are not linear so instead of coming up or down in the poses, to remind myself that my fibers are moving in every direction and dimension.

*What if when I meditated, instead of sitting still, I let my spine naturally waver in space?

My yoga practice, meditation practice, as well as my teaching have been changing. I feel now that instead of poses that I am trying to reach, my practice has become more of a journey. Even when I am in a pose, the pose continues. Now as I "hold" the poses I imagine myself underwater. Paradoxically that ever-fluid wavering is making me stronger by "tricking" my body into staying present and not relying on old samskaric patterns of posture. If anything the little wavers in each pose brings greater awareness to my body and the parts of my body that don't want to move. Energetically it is also making my body start to unwind in its own unique way. It's not about moving mindlessly. It's about adding a conscious wavering to the poses and seeing how that feels. Maybe it will invite us to not hold ourselves so stiffly; our bodies, our beliefs, our opinions, ourselves. Maybe it will remind us that who we really are is an ever pulsating & throbbing energy.

Maybe as I finish writing this, and as you, dear reader, finish reading this, we can both check to see if our bodies have been stiff in space. We can breathe a little bit more and allow ourselves to move as if we were held by water.

Psoas Release Pose

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Sun, 13 May 2012 16:53:43 GMT

On Thursdays' Restorative Yoga class something interesting happened. I had started class with some gentle stretching and then we moved to our first restorative pose of the evening. I chose to do the Psoas Release pose, inspired by Liz Koch's book on the Psoas. Liz Koch writes about lying down in what's known as the "constructive rest position" which is a simple, supine pose with bent legs. I added to that tons of props so that the body does not have to work at holding itself up. The result? A really relaxing pose that through the usage of props and gravity allows the Ilio Psoas muscle complex to release.

In my Restorative classes after 5-7 minutes in a pose, I ring the bell and invite the students to either stay longer in the pose or transition slowly to a fetal pose and then sit, preparing for the next pose. Last Thursday I rang the bell and gently told the students to start to deepen their breath and then move to a fetal pose. "However," I said, "if you want to stay in the pose longer then please do and join us whenever you feel ready." And for the first time in 3 years of teaching this class no one moved. No one! Everyone was so comfortable and stayed there longer. After 10 minutes we then changed and did another pose.

It fills me with such delight to see people listening to their bodies and intuition, allowing themselves to rest deeply. I for one will now be teaching this pose at every class and practicing it myself several times a week.

Lastly, Happy Mother's Day! To my beloved mamita who loves me unconditionally, who always has been there and has all the time in the world for me (except when a movie is playing!)

To all the mothers out there, blessings!

And to the mother inside all of us, that healing, nurturing voice that is always there, guiding us. May we keep listening to that voice.

The arctic woolly-bear caterpillar

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:20:25 GMT

Yesterday I was watching "Frozen Planet" with my boyfriend and his son. Watching that show we all become awe-struck children. Who knew that afterwards I would be captivated, driving home thinking not of the polar bears or the orca whales but of a little caterpillar? The woolly-bear caterpillar of the Arctic spends 90% of its life frozen and the remaining percentage eating in June and in hibernation. They freeze, thaw, eat; freeze, thaw, eat. Finally after many years of this, some do this for 14 years, they experience metamorphic release becoming a moth. I woke up thinking about how alike we are the wooly-bear and I. Been thinking of how often I am frozen with grief, sadness, anger or anxiety only to begin again once more and recapture hope, happiness, contentment, joy. Every day is a chance to rescue and nurture myself again.

So much has happened this year. Just when I think I am doing great a new wave of emotion washes over me. Grief -as the writer Adam Rapp reminds us- "does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature." I watch the fluctuations of my temperature dance as I continue on with my day: freezing, thawing, eating; freezing, thawing, eating...

One day metamorphosis and then,

flying.

The heart has a range of motion

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:28:53 GMT

In the last few months I've felt angry, anxious, depressed, tired. Lately I have been feeling hopeful, content, even brave. A new song emerges from many yoga teachers. It seems we are finding our own voice, as individuals and as part of a grand collective. Every day, a full life is lived as the heart winds and unwinds.

In our dissection workshop with Gil Hedley last week we learned so much about the heart. So many of us learned that the heart was a mechanical pump. In fact it is a soft, fluid, chamber-filled organ with a spiraling, helical shape being pumped by the lungs, beside it like wings. And the heart beat has so much to teach us. We learned, for instance, that a healthy heart experiences great variability throughout the day; its rhythms are supposed to be unpredictable with different changes of its intensity. An unhealthy heart beats in a regular way. In fact one of the signs that shows someone is about to die is that the heart starts to beat in a metronome-like way.

I hope all of us can continue to live fully each unpredictable & glorious day, experiencing the range of motion of our feelings and experiencing the movement of the flow of life. Let us not be afraid of our feelings, of change, and of the unpredictable nature of life.

The body of the universe

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:22:27 GMT

Yesterday I drove to take my friend Tara's class. On my way over to the studio I drove by yellow flowers that reminded me of the large intestine. On the next block I drove by some trees and suddenly I had the image of the branches that exists inside the lungs & the tree of veins, arteries and nerves which branch out throughout our bodies. I had the sudden insight that I was moving inside a body, the body of the universe. That what was outside was inside and what was inside was outside. Mystic sages have been stating this for thousands of years. Yesterday I felt it, not as a philosophical idea but as a visceral truth. I am moving inside the body of the universe. I am home.

Reflections on the last day of Gil Hedley's Workshop

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:47:54 GMT

At first it seems like 6-days is a long time for a dissection workshop. But in truth I wish we had a year to explore this magnificent body. On the last day we spent a lot of time on the brain: looking, peeking, and exploring deep into the grey. I traced my fingers through the labyrinth-like rivulets hoping to find a way in or out. Gil dove us deeper through the layers that covered the brain and opened it to find the pineal and the pituitary gland. We stood for a moment, our white lab coats by now soaked in formaldehyde and blood, as Gil guided us into accessing these two glands in our own bodies. The pineal -to me- felt more grounding and stabilizing, while the pituitary felt more lifting and effulgent. In this workshop you not only see and palpate where things are but you get to embody the inside.

Every now and then I would go to the next table and find "Pearl's" arm. I continued, like a diligent monk reciting his prayers, peeling muscle, superficial and deep fascia to reveal the bones. I found what I was longing for since last year's workshop: the elbow joint. There is no greater beauty for me than to watch the way the radius bone literally rolls over the ulna as you supinate and pronate the arm. It is a wonder in mechanics, an answer to solving the problem of receiving and giving. I held "Pearl's" arm and bent it as I pronated and supinated her lower arm. I looked at the elbow joint for a long time, how it rolls over so easily, "Maria," I kept saying to myself- "Please remember this moment, please, body remember." I showed my fellow somanauts- one of them thanked me for clearing for him how the radius rolled over. Gil actually taped me moving the elbow joint for his own recordings. I kept walking around the room, table to table, "Would you like to see the elbow joint?" Everything was shared, everyone receptive to the gifts we all helped uncover.

I then moved my attention to the scapula, the boldest bone I know. This is one strange bone: triangular at the bottom like Africa, and upstairs the spine of the scapula creates a ledge large enough for a bird to perch on. The supraspinatus muscle also has a nice trench for itself that fingers can run to and fro, and oh the dents, hills, cliffs and surprises continued onto the coracoid and the acromion process. My hungry hand kept exploring, touching, sensing. I got closer and saw rives of veins forging through. At one moment I held the scapula against the light and behold, I could see through it! It was translucent. Now when I wave, grab, reach, and move my hand I think that sunlight is moving through my bones, illuminating each movement.

At the end of the workshop we had a closing ceremony were we made a circle around the dead and then shortened the circle so it only held the living. We said goodbye, hugging, making promises of staying in touch and seeing each other next year. As I hugged Gil and my fellow somanauts I imagined light pouring through us; I felt life living itself.

May I share all the gifts "Pearl" gave us and all the generous gifts Gil Hedley' allowed us to witness and these intrepid group of somanauts helped uncover.

May all of us know that sunlight passes through us.

May we continue to discover and allow the light to move within and without.

Fifth day of Gil Hedley's Dissection Workshop

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 06:36:39 GMT

Today we continued to plunge into the depths of the human form: for some people in my group that meant the brain, for others it meant the lungs, for me it was the heart. I came in this morning prepared with a diagram of Dr. Torrent-Guasp's helical heart on how to unwind the heart. I invited the group to join me in this exploration. We all started together but then Yuko (a lovely & wise Acupuncturist from Japan) and I spent the rest of the day figuring out how to unwind the helical shape of the heart. We separated it from the chest, and then the lungs. Then we removed the atria, aorta, pulmonary and coronary arteries, as well as some superficial fascia (yes we all have fat in our hearts). Then after many false starts, asking for help from our fellow somanauts, going up to Gil about 4 times and being gratefully distracted by one of his amazing speeches (for this is not only a dissection workshop but also a philosophy workshop and I am so blessed whenever Gil goes off about one topic or another) we then found our way. We pressed our thumbs gently against the trail of some downward pointing fibers and the heart began to reveal itself to us, literally unraveling like a fist relaxing into an open palm. There we were winding and unwinding the heart, with tears in our eyes. We passed the heart around, we showed people. At the end Yuko and I hugged, our hearts resonating with one another. We thanked "Pearl" for all the gifts that she has given us in her most generous act of her life, letting go of her human form and letting strangers soak in her beauty.

I left tired but grateful for such a privileged experience. I keep thinking of one of Gil's speeches today about how "movement is the orientation of the form." How -as I understood it- it is the movement of the fluid that inspires and creates our form. I shouted out without thinking for I am usually shy in groups, "So Gil, Form Follows Flow!" And he smiled and said yes. I thought of how whatever pulsation we are experiencing inspires the next form our lives will take. I've been thinking so much lately about the Anusara ex-pats. I am curious and hopeful as to how our pumping and beating together of all of us yogis for the first time as a community is creating an unknown form. I cannot wait to see wait is next.

4th day of Gil Hedley's Dissection Workshop

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:14:56 GMT

A few brief notes on the fourth day:

Today I spent a long time with the shoulder, dissecting away the deltoid, serratus anterior and rhomboids to reveal the 4 Rotator Cuff muscles and their tendons. The Rotator Cuff muscles all emerge out of the scapula and join in at the head of the humerus. The subscapularis literally lives inside the anterior shell of the scapula. I just closed my eyes for a second and imagined the back of my lungs breathing into my subscapularis. They all wrap themselves tightly at the head of the arm bone, securing it in place. Four friends making a pact to keep the most mobile joint of the body -the glenohumeral joint- in place. I look forward to exploring this joint even more tomorrow at the Lab and with my own arms!

In the afternoon we got to the viscera and we entered surreal country. I was looking forward to seeing my favorite organ: the greater omentum. I never heard of the greater omentum before I did Gil's workshop last year. Homer wrote about it in The Odyssey. 19th Century surgeons referred to it as "The Abdominal Policeman," and yet most of us have little awareness of this organ. Every cadaver that is dissected will show the organ in a different place. The reason why it changes position is because The greater omentum floats towards places where there are infection in the body or trauma, inserting itself there as a way of relieving whatever illness is there. One of our cadavers, a man we have named "Victor" died of septis and his greater omentum was wrapped under his liver, like a blanket. Another cadaver had it on top of his Intestines. "Pearl" who died of Pancreatic cancer appears not to not have it, which is very common since Gil was explaining how many surgeons will often take it out. "There are two kinds of surgeons," Gil said: "Cowboy surgeons and Anal Surgeons. You want the Anal Surgeon."

To know that we have an organ that literally glides around the abdominal cavity like a traveling mendicant in order to help relieve pain fills me with hope and awe. It reminds me of the goodness of the body. And it reminds me of my friends, fellow teachers, ex-pats where we become the greater omentum, wrapping our words and energy around one another during these days grief and transformation.

Third Day of Gil Hedley's Workshop

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:18:59 GMT

A glimpse of my Third-day of Gil Hedley's Dissection Workshop

Today we dove into the muscle layer. I found myself falling in love with the five-finger spread, fan-like Pectoralis Major muscle. I pulled with my hemostat and scalpel the filmy clear cotton-candy fascia which drapes over it for at least an hour. I revealed strands of muscle fibers which extend from sternum and clavicle, and traced the muscle looping and inserting itself with a firm tendon onto the humerus.I found myself stretching my arm and imagining the muscle underneath moving from clavicle & sternum to humerus. Later when I got to the hotel and was glove-free & clean I placed my right hand over the right Pec feeling the insertion points. I closed my eyes reveling in how the hand looks like the muscle and then traced my hand towards the insertion point at the humerus and continued to open, feeling my whole chest stretch. What joy in learning muscles this way- no boring memorization but rather observing, palpating, watching muscles move and then embodying them.

Something interesting happened at the Lab.

I noticed some fibers of the Pec inserted onto the Deltoid as well. I kept checking my Anatomy book. How could it be? The books say it goes into the humerus, not the Deltoid? I often don't believe my eyes or trust my gut so I called over some other somanauts. Yep, they agreed, my eyes were right, there were fibers of the Pec going into the Deltoid making the two muscles look like one. Gil constantly says to let the cadavers correct the anatomy books, not the other way around. What a wonderful teacher to remind us of that. I thought of how often I see things and keep quiet because I don't trust myself even when the evidence is there and I literally choose "go by the books." May I trust what I see and feel. What a privilege to be with a group of people both here at the Lab and to have connected also to a community of teachers through facebook, most of whom have resigned from Anusara who are trusting our intuition and the evidence in front of us and "correcting the books."

***Happy Birthday Mami! Today is your birthday. You gave me life and continue to nurture my life through your unconditional love and support. I adore you more than words can say. I am blessed to have you here and look forward to hugging you, listening to your voice and witnessing our lives evolve and continue to develop. May you get many calls today and expressions of how much you are loved. xoxo Maria

Second day of Gil Hedley's Workshop

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 04:25:55 GMT

Some thoughts on my second day of my 6-Day Dissection Workshop with Gil Hedley...

The body is one. All the anatomy books that we have are in many ways an illusion- muscles are not labeled, colored and distinct. When we touch someone, say we are massaging their back, we are not just rubbing their Trapezius muscle. We are massaging skin, superficial fascia, deep fascia, Traps. It is all one. You can try to isolate as best as you can say the Psoas Major but you will inevitable come in contact with skin, superficial fascia, deep fascia and other muscles along the way...

Last year I focused on the leg. This year I chose to focus on the shoulders. I have been painstakingly and lovingly dissecting away. Now I am at the deep fascia and underneath the filmy fabric I see the many muscles of the shoulder awaiting the decisions of my incision. I pause, put my scalpel down and grabbed "Pearl's" arm. I started to move it as if she was doing "Cactus Pose." As soon as I lowered her arm back down I saw the fibers of her Triceps move simultaneously both up and down. Some went up, some went down. I called Mackie, my dear friend and we both witnessed it. Afterwards I started to think how in Anusara we talked about Muscular Energy as having three currents:

1) From skin to muscle and from muscle to bone (by the way where is the fascia in this?)

2) From periphery to midline

3) From outside to focal point

And yet I saw with my own eyes how muscle fibers of the same muscle are some going away from the origin and others moving towards the origin. Muscular Energy was described to me often as "a hug that goes from insertion to origin of the muscles." I started to think of how much more softer and powerful our movements become when instead of thinking of energy going from the outside in, we imagine a dance of fibers happening multi-directionally and multi-dimensionally.

*Tomorrow is mom's birthday. Once more I write a memory of gratitude that I have of my mother. When I had my car accident in 1988, I almost died. I lost about 75% of my blood. After I healed and left the hospital and moved on, my mother made a promise. She promised she would donate her blood to the Red Cross as gratitude for all the blood I received from donors, which saved my life. She spent the next (14 years, I believe) donating blood to strangers. My hero, my mom.

Gil Hedley, first day

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:24:15 GMT

I'm doing my second ever Gil Hedley 6-day Dissection Workshop.

Here are my first day impressions with Gil Hedley:

1. True teacher. Humble, self-effacing, looks at you in the eye when he talks to you, listens, no posse around him, clear passion for his work. You feel calm around him. Brilliant. Just brilliant. I want to be him when I grow up.

2. The first day we dissected skin from superficial fascia. What was interesting to experience was how skin does not want to separate from fascia; they are together. They are one. It is only the anatomist who chooses to separate them thereby creating relationships between the layers. Here at this workshop we are going with the model of: skin, superficial fascia, deep fascia, muscles, organs and bones. Whatever model we have is a way of looking at the world and you use it because it works; when a model stops working you no longer use it.

3. Our cadaver is a woman, probably about 60 and we named her "Pearl." A fellow somanaut found a needle deep inside her left arm. We'll never know what it was doing there. Was it a thorn? Was it an acupuncture needle left by mistake? Was it a sewing needle rusted after 40 or more years? We will never know. But we did see how the body created a little tube-like structure that wrapped around it, as if protecting the body from the foreign invader. Fascinating.

4. Palpating the body, feeling the skin of the cadaver. Then feeling the superficial fascia how soft, yellow, orange, pillowy it is. The area of the sole of the foot was particularly pillowy.

5.Gil gave an amazing speech about the foreskin. He talked about when and why this practice started (with the Protestants -I believe- in the USA) and how it affects the penis. Circumcised penises have way less sensitivity, for instance, than non-circumcised ones. The foreskin is the skin of the penis, it is part of it.

6. Incredibly intense first day of standing for long hours dissecting the body. You tend to focus so much that you literally need to step away from the body and look around the room and see the other cadavers and go outside, walk etc. At the end of the day Gil told us that we needed to have a "change of state" and go to the park, take a shower, rest, etc. He also mentioned that yellow, the color yellow stimulates the nervous system and that we needed to look at other colors and see other things. Reminded me of how whenever I am going through a hard time, I often cannot stop thinking about that particular thing, dissecting it in my mind. And yet I also need to step away, take a breather and change the scenery.

After the day Mackie and I were exhausted so we did the right thing: we shopped and ate.

Off to sleep and tomorrow more exploration of the inner space.

Lastly, a birthday wish for my Mom: I loved how you called me today and wanted to know every detail about my dissection workshop. I know you probably wanted to be a doctor when you were young. You are so intelligent and interested in life~ I love you mamita.

Off to San Francisco

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 18:20:07 GMT

In a few minutes my dear friend Mackie is coming to pick me up. We are off to San Francisco to take part in Gil Hedley's 6-day Dissection Workshop. I was reviewing my journal from last year's experience in San Francisco. I was reading how sensitive I was since I was thinking of my Grandmother who had passed away a few months prior. Being in a room with four cadavers will do that to you. You start to think of death, of life itself and of your own life and its possibilities.

This time I find myself experiencing the personal separation from my style of yoga that I have studied and practiced for a decade, as well as the separation from my main teacher of 10 years. It is another death, to be sure. I am curious as to see how it goes for me this time. Because ultimately as much as I learn about the body, about integral anatomy, about the skin, fascia, muscles, organs and bones, this workshop ultimately reveals so much about who you are.

Have a wonderful Sunday everyone!

*Birthday wish for my mom:

Mami I love that you read my blog every day and that you are so supportive of me. I love that you came to all my cross-country races growing up, to all my shows, to my piano recitals, everything and anything that I did. You were always there. You are always there.

The last few days...

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:01:13 GMT

I have been preparing for my upcoming trip to San Francisco to study with Gil Hedley. I am a little nervous because it is quite an intense workshop but also super excited to revisit again the human form in such a profound way. I am looking forward to learning so much about the body and about myself. I am also incredibly excited about being with Gil, who in my opinion is the real deal. A former Rolfer as well as a Doctor in Religion, Gil is one of the most humble genius I've ever studied with.

Speaking of Rolfing I had the most interesting session with my Rolfer, Mary Bond yesterday. I came to her with neck pain. She asked why I thought I had it and I told her that since I joined Facebook I have spent hours in front of the computer. She agreed stating that it becomes a perceptual problem when we sit in front of the computer for long periods of time. Our eyes lock into the screen and the muscles that hold our head in place "freeze" in position in not the most optimal alignment. What then followed was even more interesting. Mary said she wanted to observe me "walk" and informed me that though my neck hurt, she wanted to work on my right ankle. After about an hour of her working on my ankle and lower leg, my neck pain went away. She is quite remarkable and her knowledge about the body appears endless.

This week in my classes we did some really interesting stuff. We did some Psoas releases and two new poses I made up (!) including a balancing pose and an ab-work prep for arm balance. We also worked on imbuing the areas of the tailbone with even more sensitivity so that we are not overly gripping on the floor of our pelvis. I told the students that their coccygeal body is an incredibly sensitive area that can help free their spine, support the floor of their pelvis and even allow a sense of roundedness to travel downward through the legs towards the earth. I saw students moving with greater care and sensitivity as opposed to pushing and straining. Quite a beauty to behold!

Then in the Restorative Class on Thursday afterwards I realized that more than half the class had fallen asleep at one moment. One of my clients falls asleep within a minute of me placing her in restorative. She really believes that I should dedicate myself to helping people with sleeping problems.

I don't know what the future holds for us or myself for that matter. But I am excited to keep learning about the body and to keep being of service. Off to teach.

Lastly, birthday wish to my mom:

*Mom I am grateful to you today for how you volunteer your spare time in hospitals helping children who are sick with your laughter, heart and kindness. I am so proud of you. You are true source of inspiration. I love you!

Mackie

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:31:27 GMT

Yesterday was my dear friend's Mackie's birthday. Mackie is the brilliant mind who created my website & blog a few years ago. She is not only a gifted graphic designer but also a wonderful yoga teacher. I call her my "Partner of Adventures." Together we have attended innumerable classes and workshops including a Sianna Sherman therapeutic workshop and a Body-Mind Centering workshop last year taught by the genius Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, which was life-changing for both of us. Next week we will be in San Francisco attending Gil Hedley's six-day cadaver dissection workshop.

Mackie is quirky, super intelligent, spacious, and kind. She seems to be walking around with an eternal peace humming through her smile, while also holding an eternal fire to learn, grow and practice yoga. I am honored to be her friend. Here's to many more years of study, practice and sharing! Here's to many more adventures!

Lastly, to my Mom, a moment of gratitude for her upcoming birthday:

Mami, I am grateful to you for how took so many pictures of us growing up and kept them so neatly in all those scrapbooks. You organized our childhood with such attention to details and accessibility. Furthermore, I am grateful today for how you continue to send me pictures of Grandma and the family so that I can now keep them safely here in Los Angeles. Un abrazo mamita.

Emotions

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 18:51:18 GMT

From the latin word "ex + movere" meaning "to move through or out." The invitation is that we allow our emotions to be there, without repressing or manipulating them with our attitudes, and they will at their own time move through us. Lately, I have found an unfavorable tendency in many yogis regarding so-called negative emotions. There is a tendency to push people towards positive emotions using passive-aggressive language or even simply stating that "only nice things should be said." There is a tendency towards pushing for forgiveness regardless of whether the person is ready to go there or not. There can be a rush to attain a certain state, thereby bypassing some real, raw spaces that if left unacknowledged can grow into deeper shadows.

Unfortunately a lot of things in life are not nice, are confusing, unclear, painful. Talking about them in a raw, intelligent way can produce great healing. Shunning and shaming people for feeling sad, angry, depressed, confused, only exacerbates the problem. Often I have felt guilty because I was feeling sad and I felt "unyogic." What a waste of energy! Emotions are not positive or negative; they just are. It is what we do with them that brings positive or negative acts. Those of us who love Tantra and see embodiment as a gift I believe are invited to welcome ourselves as we are today.

May we listen to one another without trying to force or manipulate the other person into seeing things exactly the way we do.

May we welcome ourselves as we are, inviting the possibility of more.

May we welcome our emotions as if they were guests to our home.

Palm Springs

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:37:04 GMT

I had a lovely weekend away in Palm Springs. Nice to relax, sit by the pool, read (finished a book about the philosopher Baruch Spinoza), play Boogle tournaments, watch movies (we saw "Cabin in the Woods" twice) and old Seinfeld episodes.

Then I get home and am swamped with two articles about my former yoga teacher, from New Yorker Magazine and most damning from the Daily Beast. Devastating articles that makes me want to share them with the world, reminding people of why so many of us have resigned, while also wishing that I had never read them. How to move past something when the past keeps piling up with more and more information?

Back to basics, I guess. Breathe. The breath, as we all know, carries the currents of the mind. When you slow your breath, you calm your mind. The lungs represent sadness, grief, empathy and also hope. So with each deep breath I feel more, while also making room for new possibilities.

Last week one of my private clients was mentioning how her body hurt at times during the practice. I was watching her carefully and noticed how she would hold her breath during difficult poses. I pointed it out to her and she concluded that she held her breath as a way of protecting herself so that if the pose were to hurt, she wouldn't feel pain. I thought it was a potent insight garnered, one that told me so much about my client and her strategies. I also thought it was a brilliant, albeit not as effective method of pain management. We spoke about how important great alignment and still breathe fully. How important it was to stay present, aware, awake moment to moment.

May we participate fully in life, even during those times of sadness, loss, and worry.

*More birthday wishes for my mother:

I am grateful that my mother loved animals so much. I have so many memories of her saving birds that fell out of trees in our backyard, nursing them back to life with droppers filled with sugar water. So many memories of mom feeding pigeons on parking lots and of course rescuing stray dogs. She's my St. Francis of Assisi.

*I am grateful that she was so protective of me. Whenever I would go out during Grade and High School, she would be waiting for me at the balcony, and this was the age before cell-phones. One time another mother was driving me home and asked which house I lived in? I told her it was the house with the mother waiting on the balcony.

*I am grateful that whenever I would visit Puerto Rico I would arrive to my old bedroom with my bed filled with gifts for me, including beauty supplies, newspapers clippings she thought I would enjoy reading and most importantly three gift I adore: stamps (you can never have enough stamps!), little alcohol swabs (I use them to help me with dizziness and also to cleanse) and quarters (love quarters for meter, laundry, etc). Thank you Mami.

Bones

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:12:04 GMT

"Bone is associated with deep internal support. It is the oldest of our tissues, our oldest imprint, composed as it is of the minerals of the earth. For this reason there might be an experience of connection with ancient ancestry when one brings awareness to this layer."

Linda Hartley, "Wisdom of the Body Moving"

Today as I move I will pay attention to my bones, to my 206 bones, to my skeletal system, which links me to my mother, my father, my grandparents, my ancestors, to the earth. May I move today with awareness and gratitude for my past...

*Today I am grateful for my mom- how whenever she visits me she asks me to put her in a restorative pose because the flight from Puerto Rico is so hard on her body. I am grateful to be able to be of service to her.

Patterns and Matter

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 02:15:26 GMT

My parents left last night and I miss them terribly. Yesterday I went to their hotel room to say goodbye. At one moment mom and I sat facing the window and we looked out at the late afternoon. She turned her face to me with a smile and I kissed her many times. I will miss her smell and her smile. I will miss my dad's presence and his generosity. We had the best time together and I am so blessed that they are alive. I will be 40 this year and I am starting to feel that moment when the parents start to get a little bit older- it hasn't happened yet but I am starting to feel it. I want to be able to take care of them when they grow old. I love them so.

During our dinner last night I started to tell them about my yoga classes and my private clients. I started to read to them from a book about the body and the mind. I also told them about my plans for continuing study this year. They are all very supportive of me and I hope they know that I too am very supportive of them as well. I also watched how they move their bodies and it is so interesting finding little parts of myself in their movements and gestures...

In these last few weeks I have been deeply interested in how our patterns affect the matter of our bodies. How our life, our choices, our injuries, our vocation and avocation literally affects our fascia. How we hold ourselves says something about our past and the way we see ourselves. How we move says something about our ancestors, our culture and our surroundings. In fact the word "pattern" and "matter" come from the words pater (father) and mater (mother.)

May we look with self-awareness at how we move through our lives.

May we notice how the quality of our movement is telling a story about who we are and how we got here.

May we pay attention to our patterns and keep re-knitting and reshaping our matter.

Lastly, I missed the last few days of writing because I got a new computer and they were transferring information from one computer to the other. So mom, here are some belated moments of gratitude for you on your birthday month:

*I am grateful to mom for how when she sits her feet come up to her tippy-toes like a little meerkat. She is adorable in her ways.

*I am grateful to how whenever I call mom on the phone, as soon as she hears my voice, she literally screams.

*I am grateful that she loved her mother so much and took such good care of her for most of her life.

*I am grateful that she got me and my brother so many books growing up, in particular Dr. Seuss, the Bearstein Bears, and the World Encyclopedia.

*I am grateful that she and dad read my blog every day.

Love you viejitos!

movement and behavior

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 23:26:44 GMT

"Any change of behavior is a change of movement," writes Thomas Myers and James Earls in their book "Fascial Release for Structural Balance." Could it also be that therefore, "Any change of movement is a change of behavior?" Movement and behavior so inextricably linked! The better we feel about ourselves will be reflected in our movement. And the more fluid we move, the easier it will be to experience embodiment.

Soon I will return to San Francisco for my second year of the six-day cadaver dissection with Gil Hedley. I have been re-watching his DVD's, reading about fascia & the body, as well as paying lots of attention to my student's patterns. My teaching is changing- there is greater interest and curiosity in how students are moving; how they get into poses, sustain them and dissolve them. I am also developing greater awareness of their spine's structure as well as the different layers of the body: Recently I am noticing more about my student's spines. For instance:

One of my students mid cervical spine sticks out (maybe C4). So I am having her move the top part of her cervical spine back and look up more.

Another has one side of her neck that doesn't engage as much as the other, so we are focusing on engaging the left side more.

Another student needs to breathe more on her right side body.

Another needs to soften her inner traps.

Another needs to turn his right hand out more in Down Dog.

For the life of me I cannot remember what many of my students do for a living but I remember their spines and I thrive on being of service with my offerings.

On Thursday both in the 9AM class, as well as Restorative I checked individually with each student, trying to teach private classes while teaching a public one. I hope this year to continue to watch carefully how the students are moving; to pay attention and collaborate with them so that their movement matches their behavior. This year I hope to continue to develop my eye and develop a tissue-specific touch so that I can help others move with stability and freedom.

I can't wait to become a better teacher, to be of service to my students, my fellow yogis, my friends.

Lastly, this month I am giving thanks to my mom with each blog entry, in honor of her birthday:

My mother taught my brother and I the love of movies. She took us to our first movie ever, and shared her passion for movies as we grew up. To this day she goes to several movies a week. Sometimes I call her from Los Angeles to Puerto Rico and she will say timidly, "Can I call you when the movie ends." Ha-ha! I love that she does that; I love that she loves movies so deeply. It lives in me!

Gracias mami por tu amor tan increible al cine y a las artes!

Amazing class...

Moving Through My Vinyasa — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 00:51:25 GMT

Amazing class at Black Dog today. The students were so great, present and available. We did fun and creative stuff. We worked on the core in creative ways: using blocks, blankets, the wall, even in handstands. We also did a lot of pushing the back of the head back in space to find the core. Several students came afterwards to tell me how much the enjoyed the class.

These are the days!

To look around the room and see people's bodies express their energy so powerfully is quite a site to behold.

To be in conversation with the students, not a monologue, is energizing and I left class feeling strong and happy.

To have students come afterwards and say how great they feel!

Ah- these are the days...

Some days I want to shout out from my windows, "I love teaching Yoga!" Okay, I just did right now, out my window. No one heard, but one of my cats -Butterscotch- stirred.

I love yoga and want to continue becoming the best teacher I can and that comes primarily from watching my students move, noticing where their energy is blocked and where it is flowing freely. Becoming the best teacher I can be also comes from my teachers, the many gifted & creative beings I have met throughout my life, the ones I have forgotten and the ones still to come: Sally Kempton, John Friend, Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Gil Hedley, Leslie Kaminoff, Thomas Myers, Jillian Pransky, and so many more.

Some days it feels like everything is in a graceful flow.