Vinyasa berries: Going with the flow.

This song has been in my head for at least 24 hours: Happiness, by The Weepies.  Youtube, you are on Super Fail Mode, because there is not a video of this song to link to, so these lyrics (the ones that in my head) I'll share instead:

Got a charger, no cell phone, I can't call out,
unless it's to cry your name out the open window
to a sky that looks right back
and says it's never seen rain.
Sometimes you gotta start clean;
you gotta begin, not begin again.


Lovely, eh?  And appropriate.


I came home wanting cold cereal: toasted yummy Joe's Oh's with berries, and realized I'd left the milk out this morning, which = no cold cereal late night snack after working all night.  Frustrating?  A tad YES.

Among other things. 

I have been riding the wave of awesome yoga energy the last couple of days; my kundalini energy is even going all kinds of crazy, and I have been loving it.  Even (dare I say) grasping at it.  Example: yesterday morning doing solo home yoga to this amazing lady's class, I could start to feel my mind clench around how badly I want to go to Ojai and study with this woman.  (You know the feeling; it feels remarkably like you will die or live a less important life if you can't have what you want for absolutely certain.)  Whenever this happens (the mind-clenching thing), I remember a conversation with my lovely friend Laura one year shortly after college, where she held her sweet hands out and demonstrated how she was focusing on not clenching *clenches hands*, but just.... opening.  *And she opened her hands.*

I see her hands and think of this so often, and as I was telling one of my yoga teachers this morning, whenever I can start to feel my mind clenching around something, someone or an idea (that is, when I'm aware of it), I try to practice open-hands-mind.  And, because I am in a state of near rejection at the possibility that I may not, for example, get the time off I would need to be able to start yoga teacher training (YTT), I know how imperative it is that I really flex my mental clench muscles in preparation for release.

Which, as I write this now, occurs to me as a very good way to describe one aspect of asana practice: a holding and strengthening of the body, in preparation for release, and for the clearing of blockages/expectations.

But, as we all inevitably find, the bliss of morning meditation can get interrupted by the leaf-blowers, and one senseless act by another person can elicit near-rage in us.  Then we I forget the spaciousness of mind that was created in practice, and oh-so-quickly trade it out for harsh words and thoughts, which I was reminded recently: however private those thoughts seem, they are not; the energetic drainage that results in those tiny mental lightening bolts has so much more energetic mass than the thought itself, and so this is something else I've been thinking a lot about: How do I want to throw out my energy?  How aware am I when I'm doing it?

Some knee-jerk (negative) energetic outpourings I've noticed (but have refrained from judging) the last couple days:

• Mumbling/yelling/snarking humorously to myself at/about other drivers while driving.  Favorites include name-calling and lots and lots of swearing.
• Irrational irritation at my dog, whom I love to crazy tiny pieces, for simply being a dog, who happens to still be a puppy.  

If I'm honest with myself about that last one, I actually really love how dumb Bodhi (my dog) acts sometimes.  He's like the secretly smart best guy friend you love the poo out of, but who acts like he had battery-acid-laced Pepsi in his bottle when he was a baby.  Bodhi is a really smart boy, although a little misguided in his actions, which is obviously a reflection on my dog training skills.  Although I act frustrated, I am not surprised by this behavior.

Which leads me to: delight.  What of it?  Lovely Kira Ryder said in her class (above) that when we have predicted something (which might sound like, "I just knew that was gonna happen..."), we are rarely referencing something positive and joyful. 

Not only does this take the surprise and delight out of life, but it's a sucky way to live.

So, my practice today was: be delighted.  Relish in my movie plot life.  See what it feels like to be engrossed and engaged in the next steps, the next action or inaction, which will (and have already) set all other things in motion.

All with kind eyes.  Open throat.  Kissable lips.  Light mind.

Ramble ramble.

At work.  I have all this energy.  My body is here, but my mind is flying.

I'd rather by yoga-ing.
Almost all the time.
Everywhere.

I remember the first vacation I took after I started practicing yoga.  I think the plan was to be gone for about a week.  I found a bhakti yoga studio, brought a travel mat, and went to town.  I couldn't stand not practicing yoga for more than a couple of days. 

And then, later that year, I backpacked Europe for almost a month.  All tourist stuff, no yoga.  It hurt.

My next vacation will be all yoga.  Reason being: I don't plan on taking a vacation until teacher training in July.  So it will all at once not be a vacation, and also it will be the best vacation of all time.

Must go.  Must work.  Heavy eyes.

An uncomfortable feeling.

For instance: this morning's vinyasa krama class.  For the first time in a long long time, I found myself annoyed that we weren't doing more.  Some of my thoughts included intense frustration at all of the standing and moving of the arms.  My legs and hamstrings were sore, I wanted stretching.  Movement.  MORE MOVING. 

When I finally noticed the quiet rage welling in my chest at the slow pace of the sequences, I gently hushed myself, and gave myself a peaceful reminder that I was being given the opportunity to practice love and stillness in yoga, even in movement.  So I had precisely the opportunity to practice yoga, not just a series of asanas.


Okay, let's get real.  This morning's frustration is about more than a slow class or my monkey mind.  My yoga has suffered because of tension between myself and two of my teachers, who happen to be the owners of the studio where I practice.  (I'm not sure who I'm writing to, here, because the existence of this blog has not been publicly announced, but perhaps the seeming privacy is why I [ironically?] feel so much relief in the freedom to open my heart about this frustration, without fear of persecution surrounding this topic, because no one in my current yoga circle will read this.)

I suppose, despite my hurt and frustration, I don't feel the need to air the dirty details of this conflict, but to say simply that the conflict has left me feeling so hurt, feel so taken advantage of, and confused.  By yoga people.  It is so especially painful because of how much I have admired these people, looked up to them and looked to them for direction, teaching, and generosity of heart and spirit, and to be included in their inner circle of those they trust and have befriended.

I am disillusioned to say the least, and conflicted at the worst, because I find myself backed up against a wall where I am having to defend my intentions and also guard my best interests without support, but also my relationships with these people and the studio that has given me the gift of yoga.  And it's a small town: there are few yoga options.

It's here, in this conflict, that I'm seeking the Middle Path.  Somewhere between self-efficacy and selflessness, I need to find balance, because the conflict remains, as do all parties involved.  And it's here where I'm learning to accept my teachers as human, flawed and deserving of forgiveness, and that I have to loosen my grip on myself, too, and allow some wiggle room for healing, because if I don't, my yoga will be tainted.

As it was this morning.  As it has been for weeks.

It's unfortunate that my yoga has come to circling this drain.  This is so earthly, and so uncomfortable.  It's like the point at which you realize your perfect new boyfriend actually shits and has hair on his butt.  The illusion is dead.

I don't know what else to say.  I was going to be so wise and make some really good points about moving through uncomfortable feelings, and instead I have resorted to talking about shit and butt hair.  Such is life.

Getting started.

I remember the second class I ever took at the yoga studio I have come to call home.  I was nervous, like First Date nervous.  It was a yin class.  I drove from my house to the studio, focusing intently on remaining open, peaceful and clear-minded.  My self-talk probably sounded much like it would had I been going on an actual date.  (All kinds of self-affirming, self-validating, confidence-building fluff in the face of what was some serious fear of the unknown.)  After my first overwhelmingly positive class experience, I had clearly psyched myself out.

I couldn't tell you why it was this class that made me nervous; I didn't know anything about yin yoga, but I hadn't known anything about the other vinyasa classe I'd taken, either.  But what I remember was nerves extending in prickly little waves throughout my whole body.

I want these people to like me.  I want to be good at yoga.  Why in the shit do these classes last so long.


Almost two years into my yoga practice, and we've been through a lot, me and Yoga.  I remember those first experiences as hallmarks of newness, counting each class and mentally cataloging my experiences; each was so different than the last.  Yoga, as it turned out, was helping me in staging a huge transition during a hard time in my life.  I remember latching onto the practice, learning, searching, going back for more and more and more.  I was hungry.

And in the space that Yoga began to fill and expand in me, I knew: Yoga will change everything.  I had correspondence with a teacher who told me, "Yoga will ruin your life," and I knew without speaking it: everything is falling apart.  And this teacher said, "Life, jobs, relationships, all your attachments:  Yoga will take them from you.  And then it will give you everything back, and it will be better, because it will be true, and it will be you." 

Every quiet corner of self I'd wanted to hide from: Yoga pointed it out.  Yoga told me when I hadn't gotten enough sleep or had enough water.  Yoga told me when I was feeling centered, or when I was unbalanced.  It showed me how I deal with conflict, or how I ran from it.  It showed me how kind I am willing to be to others by illuminating how kind I was willing to be to myself.  Yoga was my teacher, my parent, my sister and friend; yoga was enemy and lover, past, present and future. 

And during times when I thought I would collapse under the weight of a grieving heart, yoga was my solace.

There were times on my mat, in a room full of (mostly) strangers, that the communion between my body, heart and mind kept me connected to truth -- any truth, whatever it was in that moment.  And I would have this conversation with myself, "Okay, Morgan.  This is your conflict.  This is your pose."  Conflict in poses became an opportunity to address conflict off the mat, and an opportunity to move through conflict. 

So I would breathe.  Feel my heart pounding, and breathe.  Feel sweat burning my eyes or dripping from my elbows.  And breathe.  I would feel my standing leg ache with supporting the weight of my body, and know that it was the burden and gift of that leg.  I would feel the tension in my body and mind.... and then I would come through it and know: the hard part is over.

Through sweat and sometimes tears (not of pain, but of release), I resolved so much for myself on my mat in those first months, which turned into a year.  And now, almost two years after those first days of counting classes and logging experiences, I've circled back around to what I knew for certain one hot evening back then:  I need to share this.  I expect my quest as a student will never end, but now I know that I need the reciprocity that comes with learning with a purpose: to teach.

I start here.

I'm calling the blog No Name Yoga for a couple of reasons:

1)  I too easily define myself by what I am able to define about other things.  I am hereby resisting the urge to do that with my yoga.

2)  There are a million yoga teachers out there, and almost as many different kinds of yoga, schools of thought, and applications for the world we live in now.  Yoga has come from far far away and across thousands of years to join us here in the West, and to touch the lives of its patrons and students in countless ways.  Yoga is not One Size Fits All, and I think our yoga needs change as we do. 


I'm not seeking the one Answer To All Questions Forever And Ever Amen, but the simplicity and clarity that comes with releasing one's expectations of an experience.  In this way, I think the Truth can be felt more clearly.



Just for fun (and for my own reference): here are a couple of pictures illustrating a portion of my journey in Bakasana, or Crow Pose:

About a month after I'd started practicing yoga, I really, really 

wanted to master bakasana.   I figured I'd managed to keep from

face-planting for long enough, and so one morning we snapped some photos.  

(This is the knees-on-the-outside/hugging-arms version.)

About a year later, something had clicked.  I brought my knees in, and higher, 

and my heels tucked in closer.  A lot of things about this pose had changed for me

by the time I climbed Mt. Baden-Powell, which is where this photo was taken.

And of course, when you summit your first mountain, 

one needs to do yoga.