This weekend, as part of the wonderful literary series at Bernal Yoga, Neal Pollack, writer, yoga practitioner and self titled “hot Jew of the yoga generations” will be sharing his latest creation at Bernal called Stretch, The Unlikely Making Of A Yoga Dude. In this funny, honest and enlightening book, Pollack shares his journey from an unhealthy, highly unlikely yoga candidate to a yogi extraordinaire. In a language that is humorous, self deprecating and deeply touching, Pollack speaks about the trials and inevitable tribulations we come into contact when we’re trying to go into a forward fold as we hear our legs crackle and our back ache. But Pollack makes it, and with great stride, as he falls into while remaining keenly aware of this wild culture of yoga. As John Hodgman points out in a  review of the book,  “Neal Pollack has a well documented history of putting himself into ridiculous positions, but never so literally… If Eat, Pray, Love had been written by a sweaty, aging, male smartass, then that book might be called Stretch, and Elizabeth Gilbert would be named Neal Pollack.”

Come to the reading at Bernal on the evening of the 5th and you may find yourself gleefully going into headstand as you trace the movements of Pollack and his relationship to this practice. It should be lots and lots of fun, especially for those yogi skeptics out there and those new to yoga…

It had been a week since I had been to yoga class and I went yesterday and felt completely transformed. One of the reasons was because I held certain asanas for a bit of time and was given the chance to actually feel the tissues in my body stretch and spread, releasing all the tension I had held in during these work days and colder evenings. In just a few minutes, a new class will be starting at Bernal that speaks directly to this need: Candlelight Yin with Caroline Kelley.

Firstly, it’s in candlelight. How can that not be a wonderful way to end your day and really rest into your body? Secondly, it does what I responded so well to yesterday, allows for some deep relaxation and offers an awareness of our inner workings, both physical and mental, as we really rest into a pose and hold it for a while, noticing our breath, the changes in our body, the feeling of stretching and opening and releasing. Like me, I am sure many of us work at our desks all day holding it in and by the sounds of it, this class allows us to just let go and extend ourselves and our bodies in the warmth of candlelight and with the guidance of a seasoned teacher, Caroline Kelley, who has learned and practiced yoga all over the world. Like the title of this post suggests, it’s as if Bernal knew exactly what I and so many of us need.

Bernal continues to offer new things all the time including Grey Wedeking’s Yoga Lab: Yoga for Athletes. That’s coming up the 12th and looks like an amazing workshop for athletes, of which there are so many in the Bay Area. Grey will guide practitioners on how to gain awareness on flexibility, balance and awareness while strengthening our alertness, particularly for athletes looking to strengthen certain muscles and bring stability to joints, things key to a strong and developing athletes. Sounds like a great class for everybody! Especially athletes.

Bernal Yoga! Always offering something new to present us with e chance to develop and grow.

Wow, last week, I went to the Friday restorative class at Bernal and was blown away. Wow! Who knew restorative yoga could feel so amazing. I felt like I had gone to a spa treatment, and it was a perfect way to end the week and enter into the weekend. What’s great about restorative yoga is that it actually restores you. it seems like it presses the reset button on your body, mind and heart. There are a lot of heart opening asanas and a constant reminder that the moment you need to rest or do something else, like child’s pose, you can. This is your time in this wonderful space. When I went to class, one person in class spent a lot of the time just laying down with an eye pillow. I imagines that resting this way was hard to do at home with all the distractions but here, at Bernal, she could let go. Maybe I was projecting because I have trouble sitting still at home but Bernal’s restorative class makes up for that in spades. And the feeling resonates for days to come.

So after a hard week, or even a not so hard week, take the time to restore, reboot, rejuvenate in the wonderful Bernal Yoga environment. Your mind and body will thank you.

Sometimes it can be really difficult to find acceptance for yourself and your body when you’re in a yoga class. For me, this happens when the class is laden with standing balancing poses. Maybe it’s because I wear heels, maybe it’s my core strength but when it comes to balancing on one leg, I generally fall over. Then a litany of voices comes in: ” you can do this” or “come on, just stand” or “you have been doing this for so long!”. But the voice that I think is needed above all else is one of acceptance. We are where we are in class, we can do our best and push ourselves and develop and grow but we also have to accept the process. And remember, it takes mistakes to discover what not to do. And the more aware you are of that, the better you will be the next time around. And acceptance doesn’t mean feel great about where you are, it means being able to accept that place and move on. Even, if as Jeff pointed out in his last response to my post, that place is a puddle of sweat!

The sun is out and I am headed to class and I will do my best to accept exactly where I am today in my asanas.

One of the brilliant things about yoga is the attention we are asked to pay to every move we make for nearly 90 minutes. Every tiny adjustment, every breath, every action is carefully observed. We are invited to be completely mindful of our bodies and it’s great practice for being mindful of our minds as well. When we’re mindful, we can observe the thoughts that come in and out and see how, just like our body feels different in every moment, so does our mind. then, when we feel something, we can remember that soon that feeling will pass and a new thought will come.

It’s an amazing gift that yoga offers and a wonderful daily practice. In previous posts, I have mentioned how yoga can be practiced off the mat and mindfulness is one of those ways…

When we stretch, we’re creating space. There’s an expansion that happens on the inside, our muscles become freer, our tissues expand, the space between our organs opens up, we can almost feel it, especially when we really are thinking about what’s happening in our body as we move our hips up, place our arms down, feel the openness in the back of our legs and in the top of our backs.

With this space in the tissues comes space in the mind. We seem to often forget this amazing connection our body has with our minds. When our body is contracted so is our minds. Turn your shoulders in and shield your heart and observe what happens. It’s almost immediate. That’s why yoga feels so good all over.

So when you feel yourself stretching, really going deep, remember that your mind is doing the same. The two are inextricable from each other. Ad with that expansiveness comes a bit more freedom, which I believe is what we’re all after.

At the end of last year, the Hindu American Foundation launched a “campaign” called “Take Back Yoga” that essentially encouraged people to recognize the influence Hinduism has had on the modern yoga world.

Launched quite peacefully through its own website and various scholarly publications, the campaign ignited some controversy and reaction from Deepak Chopra and others who took issue with the campaign’s interpretation of the history of yoga–namely when yoga actually began. (Most people, including myself were taught that the creation of yoga began in the Vedic age, long before the start of Hinduism.) How do you take back yoga when you didn’t create it? they asked and then largely dismissed the campaign as a case of misguided Hindu nationalism.

“In a way,” said Dr. Aseem Shukla, the Hindu American Foundation’s co-founder, “our issue is that yoga has thrived, but Hinduism has lost control of the brand.”

Yoga is real, powerful, and mysterious. I can say with the utmost respect that yoga has been a real blessing in my life for many different reasons at different times. I have been fortunate to meet many really wonderful people in ways I never would have without practicing yoga—in its many forms of study, teaching and personal practice.

Yoga has also positively influenced the overall health, minds and bodies of millions of others. At the same time yoga has grown so fast without boundaries that it’s hard to get a handle on what is happening these days.

Someone was bound to say something.

Crazy, Sexy Skinny Bitch Yoga, Golden Buns Yoga Booty, Kick Your Asana, Giggle Yoga, Not Yoga Yoga, Sculptasana, Yoga & Whistling, Hoga, Toga Yoga. I wouldn’t be surprised to be invited to a yoga and Hippity Hop class on Facebook soon.

Yoga has thrived, but yoga has lost control of the brand.

It’s for people who wouldn’t normally try yoga because they aren’t into traditional formalities like Sanskrit language, chanting or rules, People say. Nobody owns yoga so it’s not breaking any law.

True, the great thing about yoga is that anyone can do it and that there are enough caring teachers and places out there offering yoga. There’s nothing wrong with specialty classes, being lighthearted and having fun. But it gets to the point where you start combining any activity with yoga and place it before or after the name yoga and suddenly it’s a new kind of yoga? Or does it start watering down a product so much that it starts to change it into something else entirely?
I want yoga to continue to grow and make an authentic, positive impact on even more people. Twenty years from now, I want to see yoga integrated into health care treatments to help cancer patients not be remembered the same way when you say the words step aerobics today.

I’m glad the Hindu American Foundation said something even though it’s not the way everyone sees it. I’d rather us pay homage to our roots and think a little bit more instead of trying to creatively market yoga into every imaginable activity out there this year.

If we don’t, we may be headed to a place we don’t want to go. In fact, we’re already there.

There is a new Chase Bank commercial of a woman doing standing bow pose, She’s very focused and in great alignment when suddenly, something breaks her attention at the top of her mat. It’s her cell phone of course letting her know her account balance is low. Not to worry, in one graceful move she bends down and transfers money from her phone into her account “keeping her life in balance” as the narrator says and she calmly exits the pose.

B’onlineyoga. Balance your Bills while Balancing your life. Save time. Take time…for yourself.  Bring your own iPhone, iPad or Blackberry.

Think maybe the Hindu American Foundation has a few valid points?

When looking up Kiki in the Sanskrit dictionary, I found that it means blue jay. I suddenly thought, wow, my garden is full of kikis. But when we speak of kiki in yoga class, it means something else. In fact, it means two things. Kiki means crisis but it also means opportunity. And that is very exciting because oftentimes when we think of a crisis, we think of it as something kind of bad, something we may not be able to get out of, something that is a huge challenge. But in fact, these seeming huge challenges, like say a certain asana, or maybe even a state of mind, are really opportunities.

For me, a crisis to a certain extent, is tree pose. For some reason, I find tree pose super challenging. When I hear we’re going to be going into tree pose, I start becoming a little worried. How will I be able to stay up, will tree work for me this time, a lot of the Vritties start coming into my mind. But then I think to myself, this is an opportunity, another chance at something I find difficult, an opportunity for change. In fact, these kikis are often gifts.

So next time,. try and think of it as that. When a crisis comes up, be it an asana, a thought or something else happening, remember the idea behind crisis which is opportunity.

One of the most amazing things about the practice of yoga, and the most challenging (at times) for me to wrap my head around, is the power of concentration that comes with practice. In yoga, we are invited to be very focused, on our breath, on our movements, where we settle our eyes and, of course, our thoughts. Our minds are always swirling with thoughts, about work, about friends, about loved ones, about food, about where we’ve been and where we are headed. Yoga invites us to be right here, with our breath, with our movements.

What sometimes comes in the way of this, and what many Bernal Yoga practitioners have probably heard, is the Vritties. Vritti is a Sanscrit word meaning fluctuations of mind or “waves of mental activities (chitta vritti) of thought and perception”. It literally means whirlpool and sometimes when we’re lost in thought our mind really does feel like a whirlpool.

The practice of yoga allows us to quiet that whirlpool and to connect with our body, to form that union, that bond, that yoga.

But one thing I realized the other day, and something brought to my attention by my teacher, was that Vritties don’t only make themselves apparent through wandering thoughts but also through other actions, like fixing your hair (I do this all the time), adjusting your pants (also something I do), playing with your jewelry, or other distractions. So it’s important to be vigilant in these ways, watch the mind, watch your movements, be kind to yourself when Vritties present themselves and know that this is a practice of being aware of those, refining them and letting them go.

That is one of the biggest challenges in yoga sometimes, getting the ego out of the way so you can get down to business. The ego is often there, suggesting how you could do something better, how great you are at something else, and sometimes you just have to breathe and let all that criticism and praise go because the next day, you may have the same exact class and all the things you think you were brilliant at are different.

The ego becomes particularly apparent to me when the teacher suggests one pose for level 1 students and a seemingly deeper pose for level 2-3 students. I have been doing yoga for some time and my ego will tell me, you are definitely a level 2 Tania, you can do this! It happened the other day with handstand. It’s been many months since I have done a handstand (and I have never done it without the wall!). So in class the other day, we were offered two different ways to begin and since I was so determined that I was ready, and “good enough”, to do a handstand, I just jumped right in. But I wasn’t prepared so I never got my legs up really and realized that my ego didn’t just guide me in the wrong direction but it actually cheated me out of an asana, so to speak.

There is nothing wrong with getting down to basics. In fact, without a strong foundation, how else can you grow. Level one is level number one! So next time when you’re tempted to go further, check in and see where the temptation lies and really ask yourself what would be best for you, not your ego.