Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Namaste

Breath, Pain and Serendipity

Training today was so much fun after being away from Khris for 10 whole days, while he was on vacation. I still worked out and did yoga while he was gone, but training is different.

Breaks are always helpful to put things in perspective and to give people fresh starts. This was the first time I had a break from Khris since last August. I missed him like crazy even though we still texted a little and posted on social media.

We had a good training session. I usually just do what I'm told and I don't ask a lot of questions or say a lot. But I remember once, Khris told me to ask him questions and tell him what's going on. I just don't like to complain or make it seem like I'm trying to distract, delay or lollygag.

Breath

Today we focused on some breathing with some of the movements and how it helped. I needed to inhale, brace and then exhale. I mentioned how I have bad breathing technique in yoga. When we are supposed to breathe into the belly, I have a hard time getting the breath down there.

As I demonstrated while explaining, Khris saw the problem right away. I try to inhale and then get the air to reach my belly. It doesn't work that way. You have to start your inhale from the belly. I still need to practice, but that helps me now. The way they explain it in yoga and meditation, confuses me; it sounds like they want the belly to rise last.

Pain

It's the little things. It's always the little things. Then he had me do several exercises and instead of focusing on the usual things, he focused on the breath. The inhale, brace and exhale. Clever, he is! During one exercise I mentioned where I felt the pain in my elbow. I knew he knew I had been icing my elbow.

He told me to keep icing it and to even use heat and knead the tendon when it was warm. I'm not a stranger to pain. It's interesting to have pain that is localized and has a cause. We talked about pain associated with training. He talked about how he trains us like athletes. That icing and foam rolling are good things to address the pain.

Not all pain is to be feared or babied. This kind of pain needs to be addressed. If you leave it alone, it gets comfortable. By icing it and heating it and kneading it, you're telling it that you don't want it there. You're telling it to get out.

We talked about some stuff I do in the classes. He has helped me get through the classes in many ways. These classes are different from the classes I was used to at my gyms or on DVDs. They are more training based and less follow the rhythm and pace of the instructor based. I was used to following steps.

These classes are circuit based and do one minute of things and don't have steps or rhythm at all. I have had to figure out how to pace myself because I tend to follow the music and sometimes that makes me go too fast, so  I have been using light weights. Khris told me today, no more light weights. He said use the 8 pound weights instead of the 5 pound weights and just follow my own rhythm.

He said if I have to take a break, take a break. If I have to go to half the beat, go to half the beat. I need to make up my own beat and inhale, brace, and exhale. If I pay attention to the inhale, brace, exhale, I can go at any rhythm and still be okay.  That's how you get better and challenge yourself.  I've added a riser to the step. Now I need to add extra weight. Just add extra little bits a little at a time.

That's the way I've attacked everything over the last year and a half. Just taking things a little at a time. Adding and changing things a little at a time. It really is the best way that makes things change and stay changed for the long-term. I really have felt so at ease during this whole process. I have felt confident. I haven't felt tortured or worried that I would backslide.

Serendipity! 

When Khris returned I had a gift for him and he had a gift for me. We both gave each other crystals. Stones. And we both had the information about the stones for each other.

Namaste: the light in me honors the light in you!

Even though I didn't go on vacation, I feel the light from your vacation, Khris! It's so good to have you back and I'm looking forward to summer with you! 

Sensitivity

When I'm in yoga i realize how much we are in need of being aware of and using our senses better in our current culture and times. We are a very visual culture but we are also a very overloaded culture. We are the culture of multitasking and the culture of over-sensitivity.

It's ironic for me to talk about being oversensitive because I am extremely sensitive. But my sensitivity is a different type. I'm sensitive in the true sense. I am not selfishly sensitive in the sense of being offended about things and thinking that society should be tailored to my needs and wants. I think that's what people mean by sensitive now.

I am sensitive as in emotional.  Sensitive to feelings, sensitive to my surroundings, sensitive to sounds, sensitive to smells, sensitive to pain, sensitive to words, sensitive to light, to textures, to conflict, to stimulation, to provocation, proximity and intensity.

I believe the senses that we are under-using, underestimating, and undervaluing  to some degree are sound, smell and touch. We have lots of sounds surrounding us, distracting us, even assaulting us, but the lack of sound and soft sounds are missing. Even in yoga, people seem to always want music. That was one of the first questions one of the students asked the new yoga teacher when she arrived--did she ever use music.

She does use it, but only at the beginning during the slowing down of the breath and at the end during shivasana. During the practice, there is no music, and I love it. It's not necessary. There is enough to do just listening to her cues and focusing on the breath and the movement and how we feel. Once you have done the class a few times, you don't even notice that there is no music. The silence is part of the beauty of the class.

Then when you're in shivasana and receiving the benefits of the practice you just did, the music is even more relaxing and special. It's not just background noise that has been there all along. It is deliberate rhythm and chanting sounds to help you relax, release and ground yourself.

I feel the same way when I hike. I never use headphones when I'm in the woods hiking. The silence and the sounds of nature are the music. Music is nice for the gym or classes, but out in nature, nature is the music. We are surrounded by so much noise from the news and even social media and internet input, that lack of noise is more important than ever now to help our brains realize that everything is not so awful or urgent or desperate all the time.

Smell is something that is very underestimated. When I was teaching, I was very deliberately attentive to smells in my classroom. Sometimes it was with inexpensive gel air fresheners. Sometimes it was with the melted wax warmers. The smells were something that was commented on as much as my decorations.

I had students from other classes come in my room all the time and just inhale and say how it smelled so good in my room. I used fruit smells, in the spring and at the beginning of the school year when it was still summer. I used warm vanilla and spice smells in the fall and hot cocoa smells and cinnamon smells in the winter.

One year I had those pine cones that smell like cinnamon in baskets all over the room. I had many boys come and hold the pine cones to their noses and smell them every day before class or during class. When I would tell them they could take one, their eyes would light up and they would put one in their backpack.

Our yoga teacher puts essential oils on her hands and walks around during shivasana and holds them above our noses. We breathe them in. Then she pushes our shoulders down. That small event is something I look forward to every class. When she comes around. I take a deep breath to inhale the beautiful scent.

That touch is wonderful, too. Hands on adjustments are such a pleasant part of yoga. People are so afraid of touch now with all the inappropriate touch, that real, appropriate and loving touch is so lacking in our culture.

I was never afraid of touching my students appropriately. I know what appropriate is and so do they. They needed it. I grew up in a family that didn't touch. It's something I lack. There are ways to show love and compassion without touch, but touch is an important sense that needs to be used.

There are people who are really very natural and good at it. I've had several yoga teachers who were good at it. My trainer, Khris, is very good at it. There are ways to incorporate touch into your life. Yoga, massage, baking, crafts, art, petting animals, dry-brushing, crystals, manicures, pedicures, skincare, haircare, etc.

Maybe I need to reframe the word sensitivity and think of it as awakening my senses. So instead of thinking about how I am overwhelmed by certain things and I am too sensitive, I should think about what other senses I need to enhance and awaken so that I become more balanced and less overwhelmed and perfectly sensitive.

Jumping for Joy: My Trainer is Tricky!

The other day while waiting for yoga, I was witness to the cutest thing ever in the training area. Khris was training an older lady and he told her he was going to have her do one box jump. First he had her do step ups on the step with several risers. Then he took the risers out and just left it really low.

He talked her through it and stood in front of her. She asked if she could hold his hands. He said yes, but told her she wouldn't need them. She jumped, but she really just stepped up one foot at a time really fast and they both laughed. Khris said, I held your hands for that!?!

She walked back behind the step to try again! He talked her through it and she did it. She said, that was loud. He said, yes, but you did it. She walked back behind the step to try again! He talked her through how to land lighter. She did it. And it was lighter.

She walked back behind the step to try again! He told her a few things, but she just tried again and it was even lighter. They were both smiling, laughing and talking, and I was smiling watching. I had just watched him trick her into doing 4 box jumps when he said he just wanted her to try one.

I was smiling because it was so adorable, but also because I recognized his trickery! I have been a party to that trickery!!

When I first signed up for training I told Khris that I couldn't do anything high impact. I remember being worried that a trainer would push me too hard and I wouldn't be able to handle it. Back then I was very fragile in every way that you can be fragile.

In all honesty, even when I wasn't in the most pain in my life, I never liked high impact things. I never liked jumping. The only high impact thing I ever liked or did was with forward motion. I loved sprinting and hurdles. But I never liked anything with jumping from scratch like in volleyball or jump rope or jumping jacks, etc.

The only time I seemed to be able to do high impact things was in water aerobics or on the mini-trampoline. I need some kind of cushion or something. Anyway, I'm getting distracted.

I remember the first thing Khris tricked me into doing was the burpee. He started me with the BOSU and had me step back and jump in. He talked me through it the way he talked that lady through her box jumps. He talks you through it in such a way that you can't even think of not doing it. You just do it.

You do it no matter how much you think you don't want to do it. You do it no matter how terrible it turns out. You do it again because you want the first awful one to get better. Then you do it again because you realize you can do it even better. Then Khris will give you a modification or something that will make it turn out even better.

For me and the BOSU burpee, that modification turned out to be making my feet land far apart-wider. It wasn't as pretty, but it helped me land steady and feel confident and made them fun. It made me want to do more. And just like that, I was doing burpees. Damn. He tricked me!!!

I still can't find whatever it takes to do the burpee with my hands on the floor. I can't propel myself back. I can do it with my hands on a step or on a BOSU, but not with my hands on the floor.

But he still tricks me. He tells me I can and to just land short. I hate them. But I try. I will get them somehow. It will probably take me a year or so, but I'll get them.

He's tricked me into doing jump squats. He's tricked me into doing box jumps. He's tricked me into doing mountain climbers and jogging. But I trust him. I know he wouldn't trick me into something if he didn't think I could do it.

One day he walked back to the training area with a jump rope in his hand. I didn't say anything and we didn't do anything with it. But I haven't forgotten that. Maybe one day I'll be jumping rope for joy! Even just for one jump!