The Humility of Headstands, Pt. 2

My headstand prep flow is now on YouTube! This flow activates your shoulders, core, and butt to help you practice this advanced inversion. I wrote and recorded this flow after a friend asked my advice for getting into a headstand.

Headstands are still a pose that drum up nerves and dread. Sure, I’ve hit the pose a dozen or so times, and flying up after a flow class is really fun. But as I mention in the video, inversions aren’t just a test of physical strength. There is a moment during a headstand when you align your hips over your shoulders and feel really light. This is a make-or-break moment. Without a wall behind me, I can’t always guarantee that I will get there, even after two or three tries (or two or three friends around to cheer me on.)

We recorded this flow earlier than I anticipated, but I continued to reassure myself that the video would look “legit,” …meaning I would have a full headstand in the video. I sheepishly tried to position my mat next to a wall (and when we moved the shoot outdoors, next to a tree) in order to guarantee a headstand for the shot. And you may have already guessed (or saw while watching the video.) I didn’t get there while we were shooting. I didn’t reach the full expression of the pose while we were shooting after the flow either. (Okay, I did, but the sun had already set, and my camera had pooped out.)

You would be pooped out too, if you had to film a lot of Navasana.

After my first failed attempts to hit a headstand, I was extremely disappointed in myself. How could I teach someone else to do a headstand if I couldn’t get there on demand? What was I doing wrong? Would I ever get to the point in my practice where I could do a headstand?

As I moved on through the recording and through the flow, a favorite nugget of yoga wisdom crawled its way into my consciousness: let go of what happened or didn’t happen during the flow. Sure, I didn’t hit a headstand a minute ago, but in the present moment, I wasn’t trying to get into a headstand. I was cooling my body down – while still recording the flow. In the present moment, I had to be present for the video. After all, what was the whole point of the video…to prove that I could do a headstand? No. I wanted to help others as they navigated the world of inversions. Getting upset for not being able to hit a pose is not going to help anyone.

I don’t want to share or teach my yoga perfect. I want to share my yoga practice. If I want to be an authentic and accessible teacher, I have to share an authentic practice. Sometimes “practice” consists of falling on your face trying to transition out of a crow pose. Sometimes practice is hitting your first plow. In between every “milestone” are dozens of classes and flows where you just go to practice. (And by the way, milestones aren’t just hitting a new inversion; milestones could include making contact between two parts of your body, or simply discovering something new about your body and the space that it inhabits.)

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Sometimes you need an Upward Facing Dog, sometimes you need a Baby Cobra. No flow or vinyasa is any better or worse; what’s important is serving your body.

The reality is that I could have spent hours and hours to make it appear that I flew up into a headstand with the 30 minute flow that I gave you. But let’s be honest. I’m not expecting anyone who hasn’t tried inversions before to soar up into a headstand just because they watched my flow. That’s ridiculous. I guarantee nothing. I’m not a Pinterest pin that advertising “30 days to splits” or “lose 8 inches in 8 days.” I get so upset at posts and pins and clickbait articles that guarantee reaching goals that aren’t physically, monetarily, or mentally possible for everyone reading. Each human experience is different. We are all navigating a different reality that presents limits and possibilities that aren’t always available to others. So why should we pretend that any diet, flow, or routine is guaranteed to work for anyone?

The most that I can do is offer my experiences with inversions and offer tools to help navigate the body and how it’s used during practice. So let’s be real here. Let’s get rid of expectations, of goals, of “perfect poses” and Instagram-worthy photos. Let’s focus on the present moment, whatever it brings. Let’s just practice.

Yoga At The Dentist

I didn’t care how much the laughing gas would be, I simply requested it for three fillings that had to be replaced. I’m glad I have that kind of financial freedom.

Weekly, I write for a dentist in South Florida, and in that time I’ve learned that I’m not the only person to avoid making a dentist appointment. Most people would prefer to wait in long lines or accept a jury duty invitation than subject themselves to scrutiny over their flossing habits. But every time I would write for this dentist, my teeth would start to ache, so I made an appointment. My months (fine, years) of apprehension led to some tartar, and a few weeks later, I was crossing my eyes at the ceiling and praying that the anesthesia wouldn’t wear off.

To relax, I turned to yoga. I decided to focus on a breathing technique called Krama, or “Stair Step” breathing. This cooling breath allows you to count your breath and feel where your breath is moving through your body. Krama breath was one of five breathing techniques that we went over while I was in yoga teacher training, but the Krama breath always stood out to me because it just felt right.

Breathing through my nose when I had a wide-open mouth (and, due to unfortunate orthodontic flaws, live as a natural mouth-breather) wasn’t easy, but it took my focus away from whatever thin slice of metal was heading toward my teeth.

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Pranayama, the practice of breath control, is the fourth limb of yoga. It prepares us for additional limbs: dharana (concentration) and dhyana (meditation.) Asana, the physical poses that we typically associate with the practice, is the third limb. There are eight limbs total, the eighth being samadhi, a state of ecstasy and union of the mind, body, and soul. I was nowhere near samadhi while I was trying to relax my tongue and take in as much laughing gas as possible, but, hey, we’re all on a journey.

The dentist’s chair is probably the least likely place one would think to practice yoga, but using Krama during the procedure reminded me that yoga isn’t just a physical practice. I’m as guilty as anyone of posting #yogachallenge photos and going to the studio in order to get a good sweat. While I pass no judgment on anyone who strictly does yoga for the physical benefits, yoga is more than just a workout. Yoga is a lifestyle, it’s way of being, its a guide that brings you closer to yourself, closer to the god(s) you worship, and closer to infinity.

Yoga is open to everyone, at any point in their life. You don’t need a mat to do yoga. You don’t need $100 yoga pants. You don’t need washboard abs or abstain from eating meat. You don’t need to know what Firefly Pose is or be able to pronounce anything in Sanskrit. You don’t need to feel comfortable with your body or touch your toes to do yoga. You don’t need to have a cute hairdo (once you see my yoga flow, you’ll understand what I mean.)

As a yoga teacher, my goal is to make my classes accessible and communicate them through love and compassion. If you have never taken a yoga class before, if you prefer ribs to kale, if you are physically disabled, if you just want to lay in Savasana or Child’s Pose for 40 minutes, you are welcome to my classes. And I will try my best to guide you through this beautiful practice and give you something you can take with you.

We may start practicing in a studio or through online videos, but the lessons that we collect through our flows follow us as we roll up our mat, walk out the door, and enter the spaces we may be trying to escape with yoga, meditation, or mindfulness.

Below is a flow I wrote to soothe anxious minds and bodies. In the flow, I guide you through Krama and Nodi Shodhan Pranayama. The flow is gentle, all of the poses are optional, and I recommend trying it before a good night’s sleep. This is the first flow I have posted online, and I would love any and all feedback that you have for me. Leave a comment, send me a message on Facebook, or shoot me an email. I teach for the benefit of students, so your opinion is very important to me! Enjoy this flow!

Turning Fear Into Gratitude

It would be too simple to say that I’m scared of the dark, but let’s go for it.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve spent hours in bed awake at night, fearing that someone would break into my home while my eyes were still open. This fear has followed me into many spaces, including my apartment when I’m home alone and my childhood home that had multiple stories. I know these fears are not irrational – they feel quite silly to admit – but my fear has started to get in the way of how I want to live my life. (I make eight hours of sleep a priority, and I can’t achieve that when I’m tossing and turning, worrying about how much I’ll be worrying when I’m camping or sleeping in strange hostel beds in stranger countries.)

On one of my more recent adventures, fear latched onto my heart, brain, and body, while I was camping in Mississippi. Just picture this. You’ve set up camp around 10 P.M. without seeing a soul as you drive into the campsite. There’s a lit bathroom across the path, and an RV displaying hanging lights in the distance, but the rest of your vision is unpopulated. There’s no cell phone service, either. I don’t think it’s outlandish to say that I had shaking fears for hours of getting murdered.

Again, I know that my fears, to a point, are rational. I don’t assume that my fears are unique or speak to anxiety that particularly needs attention. As I picture my death and obituary, or picture being face-to-face with someone who wants to break into my home and cause me harm, I constantly tell myself that I’m thinking irrationally. I don’t do anything irrational due to my fears. (I’ve dragged my boyfriend to sleep in his car, rather than a tent, only once.) I’m writing about fear because I think it presents an interesting opportunity to have gratitude.

I really should be grateful for my health, the sunrise, and all that I have been given, every single day, without a reminder. We all should…but that’s not always how we see things. Gratitude can be tricky: it usually takes a misfortune for anyone to pay attention to the positive things we’ve been given. Often, we are grateful only after we’ve compared our lives or situations to others…something that is otherwise an ineffective and dangerous thing to do.

While I work on taming these fears to the point where I’m only momentarily scared of an axe murderer in an otherwise peaceful and beautiful campsite, I’ve added a new mantra when I get especially nervous or afraid.

“Tomorrow’s sunrise will be so beautiful.”

I thought of this mantra once afternoon when I had quite the headache after trying a headstand and could not stop thinking about internal bleeding in my brain (bear with me here.) I can’t use a mantra that will outright tell my brain that my fears are wrong; it’s not going to be effective. So I’ve decided to slide in a positive message between every few thoughts. This message is not only positive, but it travels into the next day. The mantra sets me up for a morning of gratitude. Gratitude, as I’ve learned recently, is an absolutely refreshing way to start off the day.

I woke up in Mississippi to a sunrise over a lake near our campsite that was new to us in the daylight. My sun salutations were charged with gratitude. Rather than rolling my eyes at worrying over absolutely nothing, I was able to start my morning off on a positive, humble, thankful note.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m still working on taming my fears. After all, my future plans involve traveling across the world alone (again) and eventually making a bus or a campervan my home. So let’s figure this out together. What are your mantras when you’re scared? How do you handle anxiety in the dark? Let me know in the comments!!

Thank you for reading. Namaste!

Yoga Teacher Training Reflections

Warning: this post ended up being way longer than I thought.

I never take days off from my full-time job, but with the craziness of SXSW and the celebration of completing my yoga teacher training, I’m shutting my work to-do list for a whopping three days. I’m still working on a new project – the details of which will come later – but for the most part, I’m focusing on taking a little SXSW vacay.

I’m a certified yoga teacher! After 10 long weeks of reading, learning, sweating, playing tears off as sweat, and practicing, the journey inside the classroom at Black Swan has come to an end. The journey around the world, teaching and continuing to learn, has just begun.

Beat, Broke, Backpacking is going to resurrect now that I have weekends. I’ll also be uploading flows amongst my travel pictures and wanderlust-y thoughts. In the meantime, I wanted to share some reflections from teacher training. Any yogi, any level, any body type, age, gender, comfort level, etc. can benefit from yoga teacher training. It’s like going to group therapy and the gym and job training at the same time. Pretty cool. Here are some things that I learned.

Everyone Can Enjoy Yoga Teacher Training – I was surprised to learn that not everyone wanted to pursue teaching after the training was over; at first, I honestly had trouble justifying the cost of training for someone who just wanted to deepen their practice. As the weeks went on, however, I was hooked on everything I was learning about yoga, its history, the body, the chakras…we obviously learned a lot about sequencing, adjusting, and the ethics of teaching, but we learned so much more about the practice in general. We went through the primary series in Ashtanga yoga every Saturday morning, eventually practicing in the Mysore style (without verbal instruction.) Learning the primary series alone, and the recommended alignment, is worth the cash. In addition, we had more time to focus on advanced poses and dive deeper into the history of yoga. As someone who is constantly working and not able to put aside much time for Svādhyāya (self-study,) yoga teacher training was a nice kick in the asana. (Get it? I’m hilarious.) Whether you’ve mastered a headstand, full splits, or you’ve just stepped onto your yoga mat this year, you can benefit from yoga teacher training.

Though She Be Little, She Is Fierce – I was able to befriend and talk to a lot of strong women (and two men) during my training. When you’re spending 10 hours a day & two days a week with people, you get to know them pretty well and grow comfortable sharing yourself.

One day in particular sticks with me. One of my friends, a quieter, humble yogi with lots of knowledge and experience to share, told our group she was feeling small that day. One of our group members was awed at her ability to identify and express that emotion, although we’ve all felt that way in our lives. We were also taken aback at how someone with such knowledge and so many ideas to share could feel like they have a smaller presence in the room.

Yoga meetups can reach hundreds of people. Flows can be taught over booming microphones. When we practice yoga, we find ourselves connected to infinity, the whole, vast universe. But we harness this power and build this connection from the smallest beginnings. An inhale and an exhale may not look like much, but they hold power. Even though we may feel intimidated by our height, our voice, or our place in the universe, we can take comfort in the idea that we are connected to something bigger than we could ever imagine.

Burning Through Samskaras Is A Lifelong Process – When you’re in Pigeon Pose for four minutes, on each side, you’re going to face some emotions that you thought were long-gone. When we encounter these moments, we face samskaras. In short, samskaras are patterns and habits that we’ve developed since the moment our life has begun (or before that, if you’re into reincarnation.) When we practice, we aim to burn through and release ourselves from these samskaras.

I remember a particular flow (probably the one where I was in Pigeon for four minutes, on each side) that ended in a lot of anxiety. Without going into too much detail, I was bringing up past trauma and past discomfort that I just wanted (/want) to get rid of. It was an intense moment, and in that moment I decided that I was going to face the trauma head-on, get over it, and move forward. Yoga teacher training was the time to do it. I was going to get over, get through, and get rid of it.

It was probably during the next flow that I realized that things weren’t going to change that dramatically, that quickly.

I look at samskaras as a giant concrete block that we chip away at when we practice. One blaze is not going to burn and disintegrate our samskaras (I did have to check on the internet to see if concrete was flame-resistant, it is.) It takes a lot of time, and even though we’re constantly making progress, we may come back and think that we’ve done nothing at all. There is still much work to be done. The sooner we accept the task ahead of us (the past that has led us here, and the fact that our future is not going to be perfect,) the easier our job gets.

So I continue to work, even after receiving my certificate.

Definitely still working on the handstands.

I am starting to build, record, and film flows that I will put online through my blog, YouTube, and an online studio (coming soon!) If you have suggestions for flows that you would like to see, let me know in the comments or on my Facebook page! Until next time,

नमस्ते

Beat, Broke, Backpacking is nominated for Versatile Blogger Award!

I’m excited to announce that I’ve been nominated for The Versatile Blogger Award! Even with new projects, jobs, and training, I want to shake the dust off of BBB and arrive in Southeast Asia prepared to share my journey. Beat, Broke, Backpacking started as a way to document an open-ended backpacking trip, and I hope to keep leaving the pages in my planner blank to experience whatever life throws at me. Anyway…

Who Nominated Me?

I would love to thank Dot from DOT On Her Way for the nomination. I feel like I’m still figuring out the whole blog world, and it seems like Dot’s got…just about everything figured out. From hanging wallpaper to traveling through Iceland, DOT On Her Way will answer all of your questions for traveling and living the good life.

7 Random Facts about me

As acceptance of this nomination by Dot, here are 7 random facts about me:

I’ve worked for Lush Cosmetics off and on for about four years and in two different stores!
The best hostel I’ve ever stayed in was Grateful Dead themed. Shout out to the Mamas and Papas hostel!
In my junior year of high school, I sang at Carnegie Hall on Easter Sunday.
I sleep in a sleeping bag every night because I think it’s more comfy (and I’m too lazy to buy a real comforter.)
My full-time job includes writing for criminal defense lawyers, real estate agents, and relationship therapists!
Cancer, Moon in Leo, Cancer Ascending.
I just started yoga teacher training in January, but I’ve known I wanted to be a yoga teacher since I “taught” a class to two friends while we were staying at a hotel in Poland!

Versatile Blogger Award Rules

Publicly thank the person who nominated you, linking to their blog so everyone else can see how great they are.
Pay it forward and select nominees you think are deserving this award. Some of the criteria’s to get the nomination are:
- the quality of the writing
- the uniqueness of the subjects covered
- the quality of the photographs
Tell all of these people 7 random things about yourself, and ask your nominees to do the same.

My Nominations

Congratulations to all my nominees. Please read the Versatile Blogger Award Rules above to accept your nomination. Wishing you all the best to my fellow bloggers and let’s keep encouraging each other.

Kayla Blogs – I can barely keep my bed made for five minutes, so I envy Kayla’s ability to organize in the midst of working and going to college. Kayla Blogs is your best resources for planner reviews, book recommendations, or how to travel and stay on top of a busy life.
How Are Ju – America truly looks beautiful through Ju’s lens. Her landscape photos, from Grand Teton National Park to Riverside Drive in Austin, are simply stunning.
Dreamista – Anna knows how to travel in style! She’s the brains and beauty behind Dreamista, a travel, fashion, and lifestyle blog that has you covered no matter where you want to go.
Green Travel Guru – If you’re inspired by these eco warriors, you can grab green products right off of their site! Gijs and Annabeth are committed to keeping their travels green and sustainable, no matter where they go!
Nancy Chandler’s Map of Bangkok – Keeping this one in my back pocket for July! Nancy Chandler is an American artist with a knack for illustrating the beauty in Southeast Asia’s most exciting cities.

“How are you going to do all that?” Creating The Bucket List

Four months until I touch down in London….and then…..

I have vague ideas of how long my first trip to Europe is going to last. I have a lot of things to check off my bucket list…but first i need to make one. I want to keep one for when I’m looking at a map with a blank stare and no plans for the next day.

To create this crazy list, I’ve been Pinterest-ing, Internet-ing, and talking to as many people as I can to figure out where to stop. Big shout out to everyone who has given me advice so far!! (I also need to start investing in guidebooks. I’ve heard good things about Lonely Planet, but any suggestions would be lovely!)

So here’s the first draft. I don’t know how much of this I will complete, but, I also don’t know much of anything at this point! Let me know what I need to add, what I can skip over, what should be at the top of my list. Specifically good museums and hikes!!