A different kind of dance party

Sunday, March 27, 2011 in 5Rhythms, Dancing | Tags: | 4 comments

Before I knew about 5Rhythms, I was desperate for a dancing outlet, a place where I could go for a few hours, let my hair down, and just dance, dance, dance without the need to impress, attract, or provoke. Even back in my high school days, there were some Friday nights–when the rest of my friends were at the movies or out playing laser tag–I’d stay at home, put on Q102’s live dance party broadcast, and just sweat it up in my living room. Similar at-home (or in-dorm) dance parties continued into college, and then into real-world time. The scene was usually this: husband sitting in the den, engrossed in some kind of laptop program; me in the adjacent living room, flying around, clawing at the floor, frantically changing CDs on the stereo when my sudden desire for Coldplay usurped the trance music I was currently engaged in.

A few years ago, I found a bar/club nearby that hosted dance parties on Friday nights. I was intrigued and open to the idea–there was a dance floor, ladies got in for free before 10, being in New Jersey it was non-smoking, and there was no drink requirement. The music went till 3 a.m. (although the latest I ever stayed was 1:45). I began to go to the bar on a regular basis, sometimes with friends, sometimes on my own. I became one of the “regulars,” and upon my arrival each week, I’d get high-fives and massive sweaty hugs from the old-timers who always stole the show with their flashy and perfectly choreographed moves. I soaked up the energy around me, dancing the night away under strobe lights and exchanging moves with other dancers. The club was known for its diverse clientele: people with rhythm, people without; old men, 20-something boys; giggling girls at a bachelorette party, older woman trying to do ballroom dance, so I rarely felt like anything I did would be strange. It was exhilarating, and the process of getting into that state of ecstasy was wild: I’d start with some really basic movement, close my eyes, and let the music direct my body as to how it should respond next. The movement just springs up on me, a little here, a little there, and then BAM! I’m gone. It was like driving along a bunch a back roads at 25 mph for several minutes and then suddenly coming upon the highway and being permitted to crank up the speed to 70, windows down, radio blasting.

As time went on, however, the novelty wore off and the true nature of nightclubs/bars came through. I’d have to leave early some nights because I was being harassed by drunk guys who thought that my dancing with them equaled some kind of commitment. I got tired of men’s crotches being thrust in my face as I was trying to flow on my own. People spilled beer on the dance floor; creeps stood in the darkened corners of the room, staring at the women. Guys didn’t understand the concept of wanting to dance by myself and took my alone-ness as a secret desire to hook up. One time I was exchanging some awesome moves with a girl who could really dance, but when a guy broke between us, she fumed off the floor; later I found out she was a lesbian and was trying to come onto me. Some nights the crowds were so big that I could hardly move, and my dance was reduced to nothing more than shaking hips and a bobbing head, even though my body craved for expansion.

I’ve had no desire to return to the bar scene since starting 5Rhythms a year ago, which, coincidentally, are held on Friday nights. After my first 2-hour class, I knew this was what I had been looking for all along. A space to move uninhibitedly; a floor on which I could skip, twirl, or slide; people who are drunk on liberation and happiness; no dark corners in which creepsters could hide and stare.

This past Friday, as I was driving home from my monthly 5Rhythms class, I turned on the radio and Daft Punk’s “One More Time” sounded through my car, a song that played every.single.Friday at the club as though it were the official soundtrack (In fact, the radio station was broadcasting live from that very place). My mind was instantly transported back to the club, and instead of feeling nostalgic, I felt suffocated, trapped, and violated.

Why? Because I had just come from 2 hours of some of the most freeing movement of my life. I was on a beautiful wooden floor with 10 other individuals, allowed to lie down when I needed or run around the studio in fits of chaos. The tempo of the music changed from slow to fast to moderate to slow, and my pulse was able to ebb and flow instead of being hijacked by nonstop allegro. At one point, I felt the desire to run my hand back and forth across my neck, as though my hand were a saw and I was trying to cut off my head. It was weird and abstract but natural, and no one gave me funny looks. Sometimes when others were moving wildly, I just rocked in place, my arms dancing as though I were Shiva, my hands vibrating with invisible energy that I cradled and stroked. My interaction with the other people in the room was never a “dance-off” or an invitation for romance: 5Rhythms is a place to be sensual, not sexual; playful, not provocative. It’s a place where my braid can become loose and stringy and there’s no need to rush to the ladies’ room to fix it in front of a mirror; it’s a place where I can crawl around the floor like a drunk lion and not get stepped on or kicked out. It’s a place where I can bring a new friend and not be worried the whole time that she’s going to get stuck in a corner with Bump-and-Grind Bill or Dry Hump Harry, a safe place where she can stand against the wall with her eyes closed when her body calls for a break.

When I leave 5Rhythms, I’m glowing, not saturated with slimy sweat and doused in the odor of others’ cologne and perfume. My body is vibrating, but my ears aren’t ringing from hours of dancing around damaging decibels. I’m exhausted, but a content kind of exhaustion where I can sit at Starbucks after class, sip on a soy chai with my friend, and chat for a half hour, not collapse into bed feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck.

“One More Time,” nightclub? Probably not. I’ve found a different kind of dance party.

Flashback Friday: Dancing at Kripalu

Saturday, March 26, 2011 in Flashback Friday, Kripalu | 9 comments

I completed my yoga teacher training (YTT) at Kripalu in 2006, but I returned in the summer of 2008 for a weekend “Let Your Yoga Dance” program led by Megha Nancy Buttenheim.

 

Striving to shine like the Megha-watt!

It was my first time returning to Kripalu since my monthlong training, and I was filled with nervous excitement about going back to the place where so much transformation occurred. My former coworker Carrol tagged along with me, making the 4.5-hour drive to and from an estrogen-filled, nonstop fun car ride. 🙂

 

"Old lady friend" Carrol

Below are some random thoughts and observations from my journal.

• So, it’s weird, but when Carrol and I finally found Kripalu (after aimlessly driving around West Stockbridge and Lenox, cursing at the GPS lady), I was scared. I saw the contemplative guests walking, the shiny happy hippies smiling, the YTTers’ yoga mats lined up all perfectly through the open doors of the Shadowbrook room and got kind of panicked.

Maybe I shouldn’t have returned. What am I trying to return to?

I felt a lump in my throat for about an hour after arriving, but eventually it dissipated, and I was totally at home again.

When I was in the YTT program, I always hated the “weekend” people who crowded the halls Friday through Sunday and marred the sacred serenity of the place. Now I was one of those people. I listened into some of the YTTers deep, intense conversations and felt like I was eavesdropping on aliens. Man, did we really sound so spacey? Oh, yeah, we did.

• How often do I have afternoons when my biggest decision is whether to sit in the second floor lounge and stare at the gray clouds and approaching thunderstorm or escape into the Main Hall a few steps away from me and dance to the strains of piano music that someone is playing?

• A recap of my Saturday, June 14:
6-7:15 am, Gentle Yoga
9:30-11:30 am, YogaDance program
12 to 1 pm, Yoga Dance class with live drumming
2:30 to 5:30 pm, YogaDance program
7:30 to 9 pm, KDZ drum concert, during which I danced the entire time.
That was one really sweaty day.

 

Glowing.

• Our group from the Let Your Yoga Dance program heads out to the Labyrinth to plant sunflower seeds and do a walking meditation around the grassy circle. As soon as the last of us reaches the entrance/exit, a clap of thunder breaks the silence.

To the labyrinth!


•  Silent breakfast observations: Blue, yellow, and salmon-colored bowls greet guests, with matching plates as well. Cling-clang of silverware. “Moonlight Sonata” in the morning as the sun struggles to break through the misty veil that shrouds our monastery. The crackle of ice falling into plastic mugs, dirty plates stacked in the dish return queue, leftover food sliding into the compost bins.

• Carrol and I walk around the Labyrinth, and then as she sits under a tree to read as I dance and cartwheel on the front lawn. I twirl and twirl and twirl, and no one passing by me gives me a second glance. If only wild-woman dancing could be so normal everywhere.

Open space is my playground!

• A noontime YogaDance class led by Jurian sets off every circuit in my body, and then reduces me to (good) tears by the end. I watch a lumpy, amorphous, goofy-looking man turn into a big ball of smiles and enthusiasm. An employee, her face was filled with so much gratitude, and she held her hands to her heart, and I could see the love brimming from her eyes.

• As a gentle yoga class takes place inside the Main Hall, I sit in the lounge, eyes fixed on the ominous gray/black clouds rolling this way. Thunder sounds, a flash of lightning, and then … HAIL! Hail the size of mothballs, setting off car alarms, collecting on top of the picnic table canopies, collecting in the pools in the valleys on the front lawn. Crazy folk run outside to do handstands on the ice and make “hail angels.” The echoes of thunder sound like a giant celestial, threatening hand breaking planets, crushing entire forests of redwoods in one fell swoop, drawing out the destruction bone by bone, trunk by trunk. Bits of planet falling to Earth. Lightning that sounds like a shotgun, the brightness!, wondering just how safe my little comfy second-floor lounge seat really is. I sit and watch a thunderstorm for nearly an hour: 60 minutes of nothing but staring out a window.

Hail to the headstand!

• On my final day at Kripalu, I rise in time to get to 6:30 moderate yoga, led by Danny. We’re in the Forest Room, and I pick a spot in the front, where the sunlight creeps onto my mat and greets my face as I rise up into belly-down navasana. My last breakfast is nutty flax cereal with almonds, raisins, bananas, and rice milk. Poached egg and herbs too, because it’s there and it’s gooood. I feel bad having to turn around and politely tell the couple behind me that this is a silent breakfast and they aren’t supposed to be carrying on a conversation.

I sit outside the main entrance, eyes scanning the flourishing green mountains, amazed that just slightly more than 12 hours ago, hail was bombarding this very spot and it felt like the world was ending. And now, birds chirp, sun shines, nervous YTTers pace the grounds, eyes on their notes, lips muttering their carefully chosen words, rehearsing the motions of their second practice teach. I wish them well silently through metta, understanding their stomach knots and shaking hands.

My final moments are spent all over the grounds, walking the same route near the Ganesh statue that we took during our silent nature walk during YTT. I find Bapuji’s meditation garden, ring the bell, stand on rocks and balance on one foot, doing variations of Warrior III and Garudasana as a kind of moving meditation. After holding the postures and stepping off the rocks, the sun breaks through the clouds and cuts through a small opening in the treetops, a single spotlight. I stand in the center like I’m an alien being called up to the mother ship, arms raised. I am weird, wonderful, overwhelmed, grateful, mournful, and happy.

Embrace your inner crustacean.

Carrol and I load up my car out back, the pulsing sounds of Toni’s noontime JourneyDance providing an exuberant end to this journey. She has the headset on, and her voice comes out of those Main Hall windows so loud, it’s as if she’s standing right next to my car. I break out into one final, uninhibited dance to the music, I smile, and then we’re off, back on the road.

***

QUESTION: Have you ever been to Kripalu? If so, what’s one of your favorite memories?

I’ll never forget the “Eau de Kripalu,” the smell of cumin and other natural seasonings that greets everyone’s nostrils the second they exit the stairwell and enter the second floor. 🙂

Oh, the huge manatee! and other backyard surprises

Thursday, March 24, 2011 in Adventures | 3 comments

One thing that always gets me excited is discovering new things right in my own backyard. Being surrounded by Wal-Marts, ShopRites, Wawas, and CVS-versus-Walgreens intersections, it’s easy to feel cramped in South Jersey and get tricked into thinking that suburbia has nothing new to offer. I mean, my daily lunch walk takes place across the street from my office in a housing development for seniors 55+. I make the same loop day after day after day on the glaring white sidewalk, out and back, cul-de-sac to cul-de-sac. The mailboxes are adorned with interchangeable “tattoos”; one dotted with snowflakes and ice skates for the winter, hearts for Valentine’s Day, and now tulips and bunnies for spring and Easter. I cross the busy road to return to my office, dodge the rainwater-filled potholes in the parking lot, and settle back into my swivel chair for another afternoon of editing.

My commute to work is no more exciting, but one day last summer–I guess as the caffeine from my Starbucks tumbler kicked in–I noticed a tiny little sign next to the Wheelabrator Waste Management site (I KNOW, doesn’t my commute rock?!) that said “Wildlife Refuge, open dawn till dusk.” Each day I drove by the site at 50 miles per hour, all I could catch a glimpse of was a long driveway from which giant trash trucks rumbled in and out. A large garbage-processing facility loomed in the distance, and I took the wildlife refuge sign to be some kind of joke.

Eventually my curiosity got the best of me, and I scrambled to Google to figure out the mystery of the refuse/refuge. Well, it turns out the waste management facility operates a legitimate nature trail alongside its plant! The site is actually noted for its bird watching opportunities, but it’s also just a nice wooded route for a long walk. My husband and I spent a few hours there one summer afternoon, walking through a wooded area, emerging onto a long dirt path, and finding little wooden watchtowers erected along the way, perfect for viewing the Delaware River, the Philadelphia skyline, the bridge, and airplanes descending into Philly International. I have lived in South Jersey my whole life, and I still think it’s so cool to stand on a beach in New Jersey and see Philadelphia right across the river. Further along the path, we stumbled on an entire bunch of bananas (?!?!?!) sitting on the beach, still intact yet very green.

 

Yum yum weird beach bananas.

So yeah, new discoveries! That same day, my husband introduced me to Red Bank Battlefield, a sprawling park on the banks of the Delaware and even closer to the airport. I am obsessed with watching airplanes take off and land (I could never drive to NYC; I’d be too distracted going through Newark!), and I was so excited to find a spot just a few minutes from home where I could see things like this over and over:

 

It's a bird! It's a plane! Errr...

This past weekend was really sunny and outdoorsy feeling, so my husband suggested returning to Red Bank for more plane watching. We filled our tote bags with books and magazines, grabbed some snacks, and lugged our beach chairs into the trunk. However, when we arrived at the park, it became painfully obvious that a sunny day in March does not equal sit-on-a-riverbank kind of weather. Despite the sun, it was windy, chilly, and just too uncomfortable to sit still. I tried to tough it out, not wanting to ruin the adventure, but my husband knew I wasn’t happy and suggested a different adventure instead.

A new adventure? Right here in South Jersey?

My husband works not too far from the park and told me of a manatee mailbox along a nearby highway. We are slightly obsessed with manatees (and pugs and lobsters), so this piqued my interest. But how exciting could a manatee mailbox be? Look, I know about the mailbox “tattoos,” and I don’t see how one with a manatee could be anymore exciting than one with a Thanksgiving turkey or Santa Claus.

He promised this would be worth it. It was.

He wasn’t kidding. It’s a freakin’ manatee mailbox. Not just a mailbox with a manatee on it. A manatee on a mailbox. Remember, we live in South Jersey. This may be normal in South Florida, but in New Jersey this is tourist-attraction potential.

The fact that it’s in the shape of one of our favorite animals is also what made the mailbox so awesome. My husband and I have running jokes about manatees; we “adopted” a manatee once; and we could spend hours watching the manatees float idly in the tank at the Living Seas in Epcot. It’s a bit of a “relationship” animal, in that when either one of us sees one, we think about the other.

The funny thing is that I actually pass this mailbox on my commute home every single day. It’s a bit removed from the highway, though, and if you’re not looking for it, you’ll never spot it. But now I know about it, and every time I drive by, I crane my neck and strain my eyes to catch a glimpse of the curvy gray sea cow holding onto a box of catalogs and bills with his sturdy concrete flippers.

It’s just another surprise in my own backyard, a diamond in the rough tucked among oil refineries, industrial parks, and waste management facilities. How can you not smile when you see this every day? 🙂

Too hip for running

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 in Hip, Running, Yoga | Tags: | 8 comments

**Disclaimer: If this post were to be reincarnated as a food, it would come back to Earth in the form of sour grapes.**

I eat healthy, drink and indulge in desserts in moderation, do some form of yoga almost daily, use dance as my artistic expression of emotion, swim twice per week on average, walk 30 minutes every day during lunch and up to 2 hours on the weekend, ride the stationary bike at the gym, start my days with 100 crunches on the Bosu, can do a fair number of “guy” push-ups, stretch for 20 minutes each morning, use the weights at the gym, and always “take the stairs” when I can.

Despite all of the above, I’m having a hard time accepting myself as a healthy, fit, and active woman, primarily due to one word missing from the previous paragraph: running.

It seems these days that everyone with two feet (and with increasing technology advances, even amputees) has suddenly decided that life is not complete without a 5K under their (Spi)belts. People who openly abhor running still get up at 4:30 every morning to do so. Reader comments on fitness blogs say things like, “I HATE running. I’m starting the Couch-to-5K tomorrow!” Status updates from my Facebook friends have turned into proclamations about mileage and run-walk ratios. Most recently, my mother-in-law, already a fit and toned woman through regular walking, biking, and hula-hooping, has declared that she would like to run a marathon for her 60th birthday. What happened to old-fashioned bucket list goals like visiting the Grand Canyon or taking a month-long European cruise? (Side note: I’m not ragging on my MIL at all; she’s a freakin’ ninja.)

The more I am faced with everyone’s running resolutions, the less I feel like a complete human being. “Anyone can run!” many fitness resources proclaim, as if not doing so makes you a lazy, incompetent Homer Simpson-in-training. “If you can walk, you can run!” (Well, thanks for making my vigorous 6-mile Sunday walks feel completely inferior.) The truth is, I can run…but it would be followed by several months of physical therapy, more ice than the North Pole can offer, and enough ibuprofen to create some serious stomach ulcers.

Before I injured my hip, I had a consistent running routine, averaging 16 to 25 miles per week. When it became clear that surgery was my only key back into running (and after doing the research, I was adamantly against it), I gradually began accepting the fact that my life would have to go on without running. I went through all the stages of grief (twice, after each round of physical therapy), felt like I lost my identity, and dealt with a period of anxiety and depression that had me taking Ativan before bedtime. But through this loss I gained swimming, and my yoga and dance/movement practice became even more sacred.

What’s funny is that when I evaluate myself alone—without comparing myself to others, whether they be real-life friends or 2-D blog-world acquaintances—I’m ridiculously happy and feel pretty darn good about myself. I feel strong when swimming, and sometimes a simple forward bend in yoga class makes me feel as blissed out as a headstand. But then I open my eyes a little wider and see what everyone else is doing—and suddenly I feel like nothing I will ever do will be as praiseworthy as making the commitment to run. It’s not in my nature to post on Facebook, “20 asanas in 30 minutes—whew!”, yet I twinge with jealousy when people get props for declaring they’ve run half a mile. I will never get a medal for dancing my ass off and heart out for 2 hours straight, and walking briskly for 90 minutes while listening to NPR podcasts won’t earn me a ribbon. I’m living in a world where all personal feats are suffixed with either a “K” or a “thon,” not “Ommmmmm.” I don’t run, therefore I am not fit, active, or human. At least that’s what my ego is telling me.

And once again, it all comes back to the principles of yoga. (Oh, those yamas and the papas niyamas.) Most important, Ahimsa/nonviolence: I don’t run because it causes harm to my body. Satya/truth: I have to stay true to myself and value what I love and do. Just because the rest of the world loves Zumba doesn’t mean I have to be a fan. Aparigraha/nonpossessiveness: I have to let go of Running Jen. I didn’t care about people running before I ran, but the moment I couldn’t do it anyone, everyone’s running was in my face. Running Jen was an important part of my life, just like College Jen and Community Newspaper Jen. But I can’t cling to them forever. Santosha/contentment: Honor what I have. How fortunate I am to have access to twice monthly 5Rhythms classes, even more if I commuted to the city. My gym has a pool. A yoga studio exists two minutes from my workplace. These are all wonderful things.

I totally, 100% realize this is MY problem, not others’. My husband only decided to like running after I hurt my hip; yeah, that was a bummer but I’m certainly not mad at him. I do sometimes question people’s motivation for doing something they hate when there are so many other forms of pleasure out there, but I’m not really one to talk: After all, I am the person who will leave a half-read book on my nightstand for months because I just don’t like it yet I’m too stubborn to let it go and start a new book I actually do like.

In the meantime, I will bookmark this link, written by a blogger who runs marathons but does a fine job explaining why endurance events, and even running in general, isn’t for everyone. My husband can keep 5Ks; I have my 5Rhythms. Together, we’re a perfect 10.


Downtrodden Dog

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 in Hip, Yoga | Tags: | 8 comments

Despite the elation I felt last night after finally getting up into forearm balance, I left the studio in a bit of a slump due to something the teacher said after class. It was such an innocent, meaningless, trying-to-be supportive comment, but it took me from 10 to zero in a matter of seconds.

“This was the first time in years I got up into forearm balance!” I said to her. “Practicing dolphin all this time has really helped me, and I can totally feel the difference form when I first started!”

::beam beam beam::

“That’s awesome!” she said. “I’ve been noticing you experimenting with lifting you feet off the ground while in dolphin.”

::beam beam beam::

She continued. “I just wish we could get those hips of yours to open.”

WahI’mSoSadIWillGoHomeAndWatchCNNwithLibya&Japan&nuclearMeltdownsAndStuffAndCryMyselfToSleep.

I went from experiencing a major victory in my yoga practice to being reminded that I still can’t do pigeon. Or baddha konasana without blocks or blankets under my knees. The teacher doesn’t know it, but my hip was one of things holding me back from doing forearm balance. You gotta swing those legs up there somehow, and months ago I was terrified something would snap if I did so. So last night’s inversion was technically a hip-related accomplishment, but the teacher’s little “hope for more” was such a killjoy.

What’s frustrating is that my hips are open. In reality, I’m very flexible in the hip area, and that’s how this whole mess started. I hyperextend; as a result, everything gets loosey goosey and tendons start to move out of place. I don’t NOT do pigeon because I have tight hips; I refrain from the pose because I can do it too well, and the moment my front leg drops down, the tip of my femur jams into the loose cartilage in my hip socket, and there is pain.

I know the teacher meant no harm, and I’m not mad at her in any way. Just observing how sometimes a comment can be so innocuous yet so loaded.

The forearm balances of life

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 in Real-Life Yoga, Yoga | Tags: | 6 comments

The other day on The VeganAsana’s post about rising above fear (specifically about the fear of venturing beyond your “comfortable” poses and attempting “hard” ones), I commented that she had inspired me to fly up into forearm balance during my next yoga class. The instructor always leaves the last few minutes of class for “yogi’s choice” inversions, and I typically choose headstand, sometimes handstand (against the wall–I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do unsupported headstand in this lifetime). I used to be able to do forearm balance and scorpion, no problem, years ago, but after I shifted from ashtanga classes to more Kripalu/gentle varieties, the opportunity for such inversions rarely arose.

Physically, I was so ready for the pose. We have been practicing dolphin pose and forearm prep for months now in class, and I can totally feel the difference from Day 1 through now. My shoulders are so much stronger, and every time we go into dolphin, I walk my feet toward my hands, stand on my tippy toes, and feel the entire body engage. It wants to invert. It’s ready. But then every time inversion time comes, I chicken out and float into headstand instead.

After I made the comment on The VeganAsana’s blog, I knew I was committed. Even though VeganAsana nor any of her followers were in my yoga class tonight, I felt like I signed up for the challenge and there was no backing out. Yet right before inversion time, while chilling out in shoulderstand, I kept running excuses through my head. I’m tired. I’m bloated. I’m more hot than usual. My arms are too sweaty.

The thoughts of my blog comment lingered, though, as I pulled my mat up to the wall after fish pose. Hands to elbows. Elbows under shoulders. Hands straight out. Legs in downdog. Walk closer to the hands. Closer. Engage the core! Long exhale….inhale and UP! Up went my left leg, then the right, and in 2 seconds I was in forearm balance. I totally surprised myself and hovered off the wall for a few moments, feeling shockingly stable. I lowered myself back to the mat to let it all sink in and not to overdo it in euphoria. I went up again, this time bending the knees to slowly lower into scorpion. Not anywhere close to touching my feet to my head, but it was a start. 🙂

This past weekend included some metaphorical forearm balances. Actually, probably more like metaphorical downward dogs, because the real-life fears I had were so small compared to other big, scary, real-world fears. Challenging yourself to leave an unfulfilling job is a forearm balance…signing up to pay your credit card bills online is a freakin’ child’s pose.

Yes, for real. I am 30 years old and just signed up to pay my credit card bills online. Up until now, I was doing it the old-fashioned way, with checkbooks and stamps and pens. And then last month, for the first time ever, I was late on a payment. I was devastated. I had had a credit card since I was 17, and I paid my bills in full, on time, year after year. Once my streak was ruined, though, I decided to give the hairy scary Internet a try. I imagined a time-consuming process of entering my life history online, needing to get permission from my bank, perhaps having to mail my credit card company some kind of documentation. Instead, I entered my bank routing number, my checking account number, and BOOM. Insta-pay. I went from Laura Ingalls Wilder to Judy Jetson in 3 minutes, and it felt pretty darn good!

Another big accomplishment of the weekend was learning how to drive into the city. This weekend’s event (learning how to and being comfortable driving into West Philly) is akin to learning shoulderstand, because there are certainly bigger inversions to eventually learn, say, driving to our friend’s place in Tacony (headstand), driving to my sister’s apartment in Northern Liberties (forearm balance), and maybe one day driving into Center City (AHHH, HANDSTAND WITH NO WALL WITH SPIDERS CRAWLING ALL OVER THE FLOOR!!!).

Yes, for real. I am 30 years old, live 15 minutes from the city, and am afraid to drive there. If an event is taking place outside walking distance of any of the Speedline stops, forget it. I have a completely irrational fear of driving in the city, followed closely by an intense resistance to using Septa. But there’s an event coming up this weekend, a movement modality from Europe called Biodanza, taking place at an awesome yoga/dance studio in West Philly. I have wanted to go to this studio forever (weekly 5Rhythms classes!), but The Fear held me back (I’ll just stick to my twice monthly classes in Jersey). But I really, really want to go to this Biodanza class, and it was the perfect “deadline” for me to get my butt over the bridge.

So this past weekend, my husband sat in the passenger seat as I went for a test drive into West Philly. Fortunately, the studio is fairly easy to get to, and there’s no driving through the heart of University City (another headstand!). The parking situation freaked me out a bit; I am still scarred from the last time I tried to parallel park (in Haddonfield, of all places) and totally scraped my car against the very sturdy bumper of an SUV.

My husband has trouble understanding why city driving freaks me out so much, and I explained to him that it’s all GO-GO-GO! I’m from the suburbs; I’m used to being able to pull into someone’s driveway to turn around, turning down a side street without panicking that it’s a one-way, or stopping at a Wawa, a bank, a McDonald’s parking lot if I’m lost and need to regroup. You can’t do that in the city. There’s no stopping, there are no driveways or parking lots, cyclists are inches away from your car, WTF trolleys!?!?!?!, and there is always someone on your ass. To put it in yoga terms, there is absolutely no time for child’s pose while driving in the city. It’s constant vinyasas—chaturanga, updog, downdog, plank, chaturanga, updog, downdog, so on and so forth.

So today marked a real forearm balance, this past weekend marked a metaphorical forearm balance, and this Saturday will be my attempt to do the metaphorical forearm balance off the wall. This is big! Must breathe.

Bringing yoga to the funeral home

Wednesday, March 16, 2011 in Breathing | 4 comments

I am disappointed with myself right now because I feel like a bit of a hypocrite.

When I’m on the yoga mat, I’m all about breeeeathing, feeling the flow, living in the transitions. When I dance, I’m always reminding myself to breeeathe. When I have to get something “icky” done like a blood test, I breaathe through the procedure as if I’m in a yoga class, trying my best to experience it as it comes, no judgment, no tensing up. Don’t clench, don’t resist.

But, the problem is that when it comes to truly tough stuff–like death–I clench, I resist, and I forget to breathe.

I realized that this morning as, during my commute to work, I was “prepping” myself for my aunt’s funeral tomorrow. I was envisioning who would be there, what they’d be doing: My mom will probably be crying the whole time. My grandmom may burst out into tears. Sad music will most likely be playing in the funeral home. It will be difficult, but I will be STRONG! If memories of my aunt crop up as I sit there during the viewing, I will smile with fondness, not blubber like a baby. I will resist any urges to tear up, and I will be a role model for all those around me!

Essentially, I was prepping myself not to breathe.

Because how else can you prevent yourself from truly experiencing your emotions? You hold your breath. You breathe shallowly. As it was stated so eloquently during my YTT, “inhalation increases sensation.” The moment you allow your cells to be fully nourished with oxygen, they are more receptive to physical and emotional pain. Likewise, restricting that oxygen decreases sensation; we may exit from the difficult situation (e.g., funeral) tear-free, but now we’re also rigid and lifeless and just a shell of our true selves.

That’s the nature of Kripalu yoga, the lineage in which I received my teacher certification. In fact, one of Kripalu yoga’s mantras is “Briffwa,” or BRFWA: Breathe, Relax, Feel, Watch, Allow. This not only applies to holding a yoga asana but to being in any of life’s more difficult situations. Take a deep breath. Don’t clench. Allow the tears to fall. Acknowledge the tears falling, the wrenching feeling in your gut. Don’t judge the emotions, and don’t overanalyze the situation either.

Just live in the moment. Just breathe. Just be human already.

How to respond to ‘Not Responding’

Monday, March 14, 2011 in Breathing, Work | 2 comments

One thing that absolutely drivers me bonkers at work is when my dinosaur computer acts like a sluggish, uncaffeinated lazy bum and comes to a complete standstill when I’m trying to accomplish something. You know the feeling. You’re trying to open an e-mail, and you just wait and wait and wait; the screen image stays the same, nothing new opens, and no matter how many times you violently click your mouse or slide it back and forth on the mousepad (like that works) you’re stuck in this limbo land, caught between being completely productive and completely helpless. You either have to wait it out or restart your computer, which, if it’s a PC with 4584797859 programs like the one I deal with in the office, well, you might as well take your lunch break while waiting for everything to reboot.

The frustration and anger that arises in me during such encounters is not healthy, and at times I feel like my computer’s “Not Responding” message is synonymous with “Time for Jen to Turn into the Incredible Hulk.” I huff and puff and stomp over to my manager’s office, whining, cursing, shaking my fist at the invisible force that stalls my system. Stupid PCs. Stupid IT department. Stupid, ironic world in which technology keeps us from being productive.

So I’ve decided to do a little experiment to counter my rage. Every time I get a “Not Responding” message, I’m going to close my eyes and take a few deep belly breaths, using this “down” time as a way to regroup and clear my mind. If I have to restart my computer, what a perfect opportunity to step away from my desk and escape into the bathroom for a few minutes of light stretching and breathing.

Maybe it’s a good thing that my computer is a sluggish dinosaur; it may just turn me into one blissed-out editor.

Falling into the flow

Sunday, March 13, 2011 in Follow the Flow | Tags: | 1 comment

I am a creature of habit, so sometimes abandoning routine and “going with the flow” makes me feel like I’m walking into headwind.

(Even now, as I write this, I am eating my usual morning bowl of oats, the same thing I eat every.single.Sunday. Sometimes, even when I’m craving eggs and waffles, I’ll still eat my oatmeal out of fear of “missing my oatmeal.” *tear*)

This past week, though, I found myself falling into the flow more than once–and it actually turned out OK.

It started on Wednesday, which is usually my swimming day. I leave work, drive to the gym, change into my Speedo, and do laps for half an hour. However, that afternoon my right arm started acting up, probably from working on the computer all day, repeatedly clicking away on my mouse as I SpellChecked an entire journal issue. From my neck to my wrist it was tingling, and by the end of the workday I was concerned that swimming would exacerbate the arm. But…but…it was Wednesday! It’s my swimming day! My bathing suit and towel were in the trunk of my car, ready to go.

I took some deep breaths. I contemplated: Swimming is one of the few workout outlets I have at this point. You bust your shoulder, you’re out.

I listened to logic and followed the flow back to my house.

At home, I did a 30-minute complex workout taken from the new issue of Experience Life magazine (one of the best healthy living mags out there, IMO). Afterward, I fiddled with Grooveshark and accessed some trancey music from Maneesh de Moor, falling into free dance for a solid 20 minutes. Flowing like that felt great after the weight routine, and I got so into it that–out of nowhere–I started vocalizing my movements, as though I were leading a JourneyDance class. My eyes closed, and I pretended I had bodies behind me, their arms moving like taffy, following my guidance. I had no intention of breaking out into teacher mode like that, but I just kept working with it, flowing.

I felt pretty good the next day at work, so much that at one point I spoke up to our editorial director about something I thought could be changed with our procedures. I saw room for change, and instead of just sitting back and saying, “Well, that’s what we’ve always done,” I voiced my opinion and suggestions for improvement. “That’s not a bad idea,” she said. “I’ll have to talk it over with [Big Boss].” Woah!

By the end of the day, I was facing a situation similar to Wednesday’s. I was supposed to go to kundalini class that evening, but I had been sitting all day (it was downpouring all day, so I wasn’t able to take my usual lunch walk), and my butt, hip, and legs ached. Sometimes the majority of a kundalini class is sitting, and I so wasn’t looking forward to 75 more minutes of being on my rear. But…it was kundalini day! Once again, I had to deliberate the options. And again, I abandoned routine and decided to go with the flow, instead driving to the hot yoga studio for a 90-minute vinyasa class. The constant movement felt great for my whole body, and the heat was CRANKED up that night, at one point reaching 106. I think it was the sweatiest, most disgusting I’ve ever been, but I felt freakin’ fabulous. During savasana, the teacher bent down and did a little Thai yoga massage on my legs, gently rocking them back and forth. It was the first savasana “adjustment” I’ve received in ages, and I was touched that she thought of me and my creaky hips. In fact, after class she asked if it would be OK for her to do that after every class. Most certainly!

As I was about to leave the yoga studio, I passed the mini-fridge that houses the coconut water for sale. In the past, if I wanted coconut water I brought my own, because of course the studio marks it up. But all I had was plain water that night, and after such a sweaty, exhausting class, I could practically hear my cells plea for electrolytes. And, although I’ve bypassed that fridge now for almost a year, that night I got the money out of my pocket and paid for an overpriced carton of coconut water. I chugged it down like a frat boy with a beer can, and damn, it hit the spot.

Flashback Friday: My Kripalu YTT experience

Friday, March 11, 2011 in Flashback Friday, Kripalu | Tags: , , | 21 comments

OK, here’s the deal: Technically, I am certified to teach yoga. But I haven’t taught a class since 2007.

There are no caps and gowns at Kripalu, just sandalwood on my forehead to represent the earth, to which we are all connected. I had also been blessed with rice and flower petals on my head, but they fell off as I walked down the aisle.

I am a graduate of the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health‘s 200-hour yoga teacher training program. I attended the certification program in October-November 2006. At the time, I was working as an editor at a local newspaper group, and I was fortunate enough to be granted a monthlong, unpaid leave of absence so I could skitter north to Massachusetts, where I’d wear spandex pants from morning through night, spend most of my days inverted in downdog, and experience meditation sits so deep that I’d leave the room feeling like a helium balloon ready to lift off into space.

I enrolled in the program after developing a pretty intense yoga practice at home and through various studio classes, which I was taking about 5 days per week. I loved when my teachers spoke Sanskrit. I studied Yoga Journal magazine like I was cramming for a final exam. As my practice intensified, I’d be in class, thinking of ways I’d approach a sequence differently. Or I’d watch new students struggling in a pose and would mentally go through ways I’d help that person if I were at the front of class. I also felt somewhat guilty for “just” being a student: How selfish I was to devote 75 minutes a day to myself, my mind, and my body? Maybe if I taught yoga, it would validate my passion?

I struggled with the decision for months: to teach or not to teach? But then in the summer of 2006, my husband and I went on a group trip to China, which included a few days in Tibet. That’s a whole other post, but let’s just say that if you have any kind of spiritual practice, going to Tibet will blow.your.mind. Lhasa was a spiritual powerhouse, and there was all kinds of energy flowing every which way around us, between the devout monks, pilgrims, and the towering statues of Buddha we encountered in every nook and cranny of the most sacred monasteries. I came home from that trip on fire, ready for something. I wanted change, I wanted to learn, I wanted to spread love and peace. I wanted to meditate and breathe and open myself to the universal energy that hit me so hard on the roof of the Jokhang Temple.

View from the roof of the Jokhang Temple. That’s Potala Palace, former residence of the Dalai Lama.

I was ready to DO THIS!

The minute we pulled up to Kripalu, my month’s worth of black yoga pants and tank tops in the trunk, I started bawling. I was leaving my husband for a month! My job! Starbucks, computers, private bathroom experiences! But then that afternoon I took a gentle yoga class, ate an amazing fresh and all-natural dinner, and met the 2 facilitators, 4 assistants, and 59 classmates who would help make the next 28 days awesome.

During our end-of-program party, we presented our teachers and assistants with hand-crafted Om mandalas. To honor their gifts, they led a continuous Om chant, which always sounds beautiful. And that’s me and Akira, a fellow student.

To write here about my whole Kripalu experience would take way too long and would instantly be tagged as TLDR (“teal deer”: too long, didn’t read!) But there was lots of yoga, electrifying pranayama and meditation work (seriously, floating), and powerful, deep classes after which I felt like a live wire, so much that my handwriting in my journal changed dramatically and was all jagged and stuff. We chanted together, we danced together, we shared stories of love and loss and fear and strength, we joked about being constipated from too much tofu and beans. We watched yoga “superstars” come and go in and out of the facility for their weekend workshops: Shiva Rea, kundalini guru Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa (she is INTENSE, man–her eyes!!), satsang leader Mooji (we snuck into one of his lessons), Budokon creator Cameron Shayne and his ninja posse. We learned how to teach a basic seated pose; we learned how to teach headstand. I spent my weekends working up the courage to dip into the “bathing suit optional” jacuzzi. Dancing with the live KDZ drummers during noon DansKinetics (YogaDance). Taking long walks outside and talking to myself. I sweated over practice-teach lesson plans; I got sick during my final, hour-long lesson and had to lead my little group of four with a scratchy voice and hacking cough. I was enlightened. I was confused. I loved everyone. I hated everyone. I gorged on blueberry crumble at breakfast time; I snuck a rosemary and thyme roll in my bag at dinner. At times I danced more than I did yoga, and I began to fear that I signed up for the wrong program and should have been studying DansKinetics instead.

Me with YTT facilitator/YogaDance teacher Megha, just a wildly sweet, crazy, passionate, ecstatic, and delightful woman.

Doing yoga, pranayama, and meditation consistently day in and day out, plus being sheltered from the world outside (seriously, as a mostly “cellphone-free” facility, I had to call my husband every night holed up in a smelly pay phone booth) CHANGES YOUR BRAIN. Stuff gets re-wired. Different neurons fire. You think longer and deeper. You process things more clearly. Everything you thought you knew is now something completely different. A lot of my classmates had PROFOUND experiences after returning home from Kripalu. We’re talking affairs, divorce, moving across the globe, new jobs. I didn’t have quite as dramatic epiphanies, but I didn’t return from YTT feeling like a ball of sunshine either.

I came home in such a state of WHA??!?!?!?! that I didn’t quite know how to function at times. It wasn’t quite depression, but I didn’t feel too happy, either. I felt drained. Empty. Like I had been so stuffed with knowledge over such a short period of time that it all just fizzled out of me when I got home. I didn’t want to return to my newspaper job, but I wasn’t sure what to do next. I didn’t even call my boss until a week after I returned, because I just didn’t know what to say. “Hi, I’ll be back Monday”? “Hi, give me another two weeks to get my life straightened out”? “Hi, I quit”? I was completely empty, mute, nearly apathetic. It was miserable, because many of my YTT friends kept sending e-mails saying things like, “Wow, I love life so much more now. Everything is illuminated. My life is shiny and perfect and I’m gonna make some world peace now.”

It was hard to digest because I was not feeling that way at all. I loved everything I learned at Kripalu and had an incredible time there, but that did not carry over immediately after I got home. It bounced in the opposite direction, sending me down, down, confused, sad, ambivalent. I wanted to save the world, but MAN, what an incredible responsibility! I kept thinking too big too soon, and it hurt. I cried a lot. I felt like I was letting down my Kripalu teachers for not jumping at the front of a yoga class the day I got home. Plus, I was sad about leaving that world behind, the freakishly utopian Kripalu community. I left behind friends, mentors, good food, constant yoga, peace, love, and live drumming and dancing on Saturdays. I was going through a mourning, a time of loss and grief. Additionally, I was going through a biochemical withdrawal! My body had become hooked on the physical effects of a strenuous yoga practice that I honestly think my brain went kaput shortly after it realized it wasn’t getting “high” anymore. Yoga totally is a drug!

I eventually went back to my editing job and found ways to ease back into comfort. I was given the opportunity to teach a Christmas Eve class at the local yoga studio, and 7 students showed up! Soon, I had my own class on the studio calendar. I was super-excited at the opportunity but nearly barfed before every class. The class was scheduled at an off time and didn’t attract many students. Those who did come said they enjoyed the class, but I never felt like myself. I put too much time into planning. If my class started at 6, I began planning at noon and would surround myself with index cards and books and YTT notes and would make myself sick trying to develop the “perfect” class. All the things I once enjoyed for fun–reading yoga books, taking yoga classes–became work. I took them way too seriously now, and that innocent passion that made me fall in love with yoga so much was gone.

By the end of 2007, I had declared myself retired from teaching and decided to step down into just-student status again. Around Christmas 2007, as I was writing out a check to Kripalu for their Scholarship Fund, I journaled about the decision:

I cannot and do not want to teach traditional (hatha) yoga. I think I have come to accept this. I tried it, and I felt like I was wearing the wrong size shoes. I love practicing yoga, I love living yoga, and I love reading, writing, and talking about yoga. But teaching yoga is not my bag right now.

So why am I writing out a check to a place that led me down the wrong path, you ask? Ahh, but it was not the wrong path. Although I may have studied yoga, anatomy, breathing, and meditation for 28 days at Kripalu, I now know that all of that yoga helped me tap into the knowledge of what truly excites and holds my passion: dancing.

The signs were obvious, starting from Day One. We were asked to call out three words that define yoga for you. My first word was “dance.”

When we sat around in a circle chanting “Ganesha sharanam,” I opted to scurry to the back of the room and danced to the chanting instead.

Sometimes the teachers put on music before class, and I loved walking into the empty room, throwing down my books, and dancing barefoot along the bamboo floor. I’d dance to slow songs like “The Rainbow Connection” and fast songs like “Bootylicious.” I hated it when the music stopped and it was time to study asana.

On my first day off, instead of sleeping in and relaxing in the sauna, I became one with the drums during a live drumming DansKinetics class. I whirled and spun and leaped and collapsed on the floor for a blissful savasana. After class, the dance instructor took a hold of my glistening arm and said, “Woah, I think you’re in the wrong training!”

On nights when I was so tired, so exhausted from practicing yoga all day, I’d still find the energy to sneak back into our now-empty program room, put on my headphones, and dance in the dark to my MP3s as the huge Shiva statue stared curiously at me.

One of my favorite memories of Kripalu was hanging out after hours with Meghan, another student, hooking her iPod to the stereo, and dancing like ecstatic lunatics, overwhelmed at all the magnificent square footage we had all to ourselves. During one of my final nights at Kripalu, I snuck into the empty Main Hall (a chapel converted into a giant yoga room) and danced some more. And more. On the night when Linda Worster came and sang her folk songs as she played her guitar, I again curried off to the back of the room and danced in my own little world as Megha, my dance-trained program leader, danced in her own little world.

But for some reason, I always felt like this was wrong, you know, caring more about dancing when I was paying big bucks for a yoga program. I expressed this to Megha. She, aware of my dance background and desire, told me that it’s OK for my “performer persona to shine.” In fact, “she [the performer persona] needs to shine!”

And I think sometimes you need to do the wrong thing to figure out what is the right thing. I entered a yoga teacher training program and emerged a more confident dancer. I loved being on my mat for 12 hours a day, but I also loved the way I felt when I was moving to music. I admired dance teacher Megha so much and vowed to take her spirit home with me and apply it to my own practice/teaching/life.

And my god, I have. Whether it’s a wedding, company Christmas party, high school reunion, or the bar, if there’s good music, I want to dance. I need to dance. Hesitation no longer has a grip on me, and I’ll bust out there on that dance floor and let my soul collide with the vibrations.

I tried to think back to a time where I felt really comfortable teaching yoga. It was the last class I taught, an open style class on a Friday night. And it just so happened to include more dancing and music than asana. I pumped up the volume on the stereo and instructed the students to get lost in the music, to do sun salutations on their own breath, with each rise and fall of the music. It was definitely more DansKinetics-based than traditional yoga-based. But that was it. That was my favorite class. I can execute downdogs and triangles and janu sirsasanas and get lost in my breath, but–at this time–I just cannot teach it.

Sure, I would love to do the DansKinetics teacher training program at Kripalu, but it’s a huge financial and time commitment. And the thing is, I think I learned what I needed to during my yoga training. I don’t necessarily have to lead a formal class to be content. If dancing–just doing what I love to do–helps get other people moving, smiling, and stepping out on that dance floor, than I am happy. In reality, I have fulfilled my role as a yoga teacher because yoga is joy and mindfulness and breathing and moving and union and bliss.

And that is why I wrote out the check to Kripalu. That place did a lot for me. It may not have been what I expected, but it was a learning experience. And I trust Kripalu’s staff, faculty, and guest teachers to help others, whether it’s in yoga, dance, hiking, weight loss, weight gain, love, knowledge, and compassion.

I returned to Kripalu in the summer of 2008 for a “Let Your Yoga Dance” weekend workshop and long to go back sometime soon…to dance, of course!

About the Author

Name: Jennifer

Location: Greater Philadelphia Area

Blog Mission:
SHARE my practice experience in conscious dance and yoga,

EXPAND my network of like-minded individuals,

FULFILL my desire to work with words in a more creative and community-building capacity;

FLOW and GROW with the world around me!

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