Three Easy Practice Rules Post Baby or Post Break

Greetings, yogis and friends. I have surfaced from the depths of Motherhood to join you all in cyber-blog world. Becoming a new mummy has been an incredible experience but it has taken me far from writing and sharing about yoga. 

The vessel I am now occupying is a much different one. My body is clean and my eyes are sharp. I am stretchy, just like Elasta-Girl from "The Incredibles" which makes perfect sense, since my son is named Dash.

My body is now likened to a wing of a house that was once closed off which is now opened.

The positives to this of course is that I am able and bendy, the not-so-good parts is that I need STRENGTH to support this flexibility.

I thought about doing supplemental exercises to gain strength: pilates, running, climbing, or any type of fitness routine. But then with time being an issue, as I only have SO much time in the day to myself, I realised that my yoga practice is going to have to do much more for me than just bring me to a meditative state of calmness, it is going to have to heal my body, build strength AND make me calm.

Can your practice do all of this?

Yes, but you have to have a plan. I decided on three practice rules: 1), get through a practice every day - for as long as it takes. Once the mat rolls out and baby Dash has had his breakfast, we begin. 2), do Full Vinyasa and 3), practice non-attachment or what Patanjali calls, "vairagya".

The first one is easy, do the practice every day and during a time I set up specifically for it's success. It won't work if I say to myself, "I'll practice at 11 tomorrow, today at 9." It has to be at the same time so that you actually get it done AND so that it becomes a routine. In a two hour chunk of time, often I'll practice for thirty minutes, then I'll need to take a break to feed Dashiel; then I'll have another thirty minutes more of practice, and need to take another break to play. And so on...since I practice with Dash, this means that his needs are met throughout the practice. This is why they are so many stops. 

Oftentimes I do five or ten Namaskars to warm up to get back to where I was in the sequence before. This builds strength because some days I end up doing twenty to thirty Namaskars!

The second one requires coming to standing after each asana at the top of your mat. The positives are that you are able to settle yourself before undergoing the next asana, and you can give your wee baby (if you are practicing with your child) a kiss or a cuddle. You can also catch your breath and build your momentum again. If you are coming back to practice from a pregnancy or a break, this is a very good way to develop stability and stamina. 

The third is much more elusive. Patanjali calls non attachment "vairagya" which is first introduced in the first of his four songs on yoga, in the Samadhi Pada at sutra 1.12: Abyasa vairagyabyam tannirrodaha.

The concept of being "without attachment" to our highly cared for and oftentimes precious practices is something that many of us work on. Daily practice - done with steadiness, for a long time and without breaks goes hand-in-hand with also not striving for perfection while learning to let go.

Years and time on the mat inside yourself and with your practice will give you the information to make vairagya work. We need patience, perseverance and a lot of inward looking (within this same concept, I say "just say no to the daily yoga selfie!"). What we don't need is taking daily practice in a way that removes us from keeping a poetic reality on our life or becoming attached to the final end perfected product. 

Non attachment also means practicing every day within the limits of our abilities, without harming another vital aspect of our lives. We must try to let go of our attachments to the pleasurable parts in our practices; on that same note try not to be adverse to something in our practice that we are dodging; we should do it with equal effort placed on the pleasurable bits and the uncomfortable bits.  

A practical example is that I can enter a posture right now and say to myself the entire time, "It used to feel like this...I am not as flexible or strong...it should be like this" and my mind can take over comparing myself to this yogini whom I used to be.

INSTEAD I must think, the vessel I am occupying is different, that time before is over and now, with this new awareness and strength that I am building, I will do the posture with more ease, more stamina and it will feel differently, look differently and be a whole new experience. So because of this, the posture won't be like it used to be, so I can't attach to that experience at all. It won't serve me or my practice if I do.

It is this clear mind of not thinking of the past or what we were once before which can bring us to a place of deeper meditative awareness.

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And how is it working so far? Dashiel is now four and a half months old, and I can share that we are rockin' practice. There are new yogic nuggets that are born every day. I find new gems of information from each jump back. 

What am I doing differently? I am not changing the practice in any way, just altering how I enter and exit asanas. Here are a few examples listed below. And maybe they can help you, yoga reader, become more committed to daily practice, and even let go a little bit more so that vairagya becomes achievable.

Cheers  to you, and happy practices from Love Yoga, Aberdeen.

• Float to standing from downward dog - take time to hang in the air
• Stay in chataranga for more than one breath - sometimes five or ten breaths
• Jump through alternating the top crossed leg; jumping back alternating the top leg
• Instead of jumping through with straight legs, go for the tight cross, hovering and straighten the legs out in in front, and then sitting down like a helicopter - stay here for a few breaths before lowering!
• Do fifteen to twenty back bends; limit the drop backs and doing more floor work; using a block to get the legs to do the work, and of course the chest follows suit
• Sing the sutras while practicing to calm your baby (or calm yourself).

Us doing our practice, and singing prayers, at Eco Yoga, Argylle

The Misfits of Ashtanga

This past month I have been teaching heaps and meeting new yogis in the Aberdeen community, sharing a simple message: practice the misfit asanas, the challenging ones. Don't skip them.

If you practice every day, approach what you have been taught with genuine effort and the practice in turn will take you all the way towards understanding the last three limbs of ashtanga - dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (absorption). 

Patanjali calls these last three limbs of ashtanga, a complete form of integration, Samyama. 

The last three limbs come when there is no more wondering or questioning what we are doing in the asana. It is required that we have already done all our work and research and we are able to invite a quiet depth to seep into our practice.

If you are not practicing every day or very often, the misfit asanas will urge you to quit and fidget and fumble instead of experiencing samyama. 

One of the ring leader misfits in the primary series - Janu Sirsasana C - is the posture that most people who are learning ashtanga simply skip. Others are a trifecta of difficult lotus-based asanas - Marichyasana B, D and Garbha Pindasana. These also get specifically left out because they are not easy, nor do they feel good for the first few years of practice.

Work on the difficult asanas that you may want to  overlook. If we are incapable of disciplining ourselves to attempt the challenging asanas, then there is no way that we will understand samyama. 

Without daily effort, how can we expect to advance or be more comfortable in the asanas that are alarming, if we don't go play with them every day?

Daily practice is the backbone of ashtanga yoga. Place practice as a priority over theory and study. You can do all the research you want - watch youtube and videos of pros all over, take workshops and go see famous yogis talk and demonstrate. But if you don't get on your mat and try, by yourself in your kitchen or in the Mysore room - samyama will definitely not happen.

I urge practitioners - whichever asana you are working on - first and foremost, try it every day. Why not spend a little bit more time working on what you are NOT good at and master that challenging misfit asana that is giving you grief? It may be giving you the right lesson you are needing to learn.

Here is my misfit asana - Sayanasa. Don't be fooled, I am not quite there, here I am falling out of it. Maybe in a few more years it will be easier. Well it took four years for that other misfit asana, Janu Sirsasana C to feel good, why would this one be any easier?

Patanjali outlines a perfect remedy for us on 'how-to' attain the riches of yoga. The crux of this method is practice: practice done for a long time, without a break, and with effort. If we can practice the feel-good asanas along WITH the misfit asanas with effort and with devotion, then one day we will understand all of the limbs of ashtanga yoga, including samyama. 

Thank you Aberdeen, for inviting me to teach at the The Yoga Spot, Love Yoga, and at Mo Yoga. A huge thank you to Michele, Rebecca and Mo for inviting me into the community and giving me the opportunity to share my love for ashtanga. And may samyama seep into your practices, dear Aberdeen yogis! And to the yogis beyond Scotland, too!


*Teaching Update:

5 October Chanting and Philosophy class Yoga Spot - 10:30 am

Week-long Mysore intensive at Love Yoga October 14-18

Ashtanga Yoga Edinburgh week intensive October 21-25.