I'm not a die hard Instagramer. There are times where you won't see a post from me for weeks, or even months. My pictures aren't all yoga pictures, and I rarely have time to post a nice, long, inspiring message with every photo. But I am a proponent of yogis using Instagram if it serves them. In fact, I think all of the controversy over yoga selfies simply boils down to judgement and closed-mindedness. Yep, I said it.
The first time I discovered that people posted yoga selfies to Instagram, I had no clue how on earth they even did it. You can read my blog post about thishere.  Shortly after discovering the world of Instagram yoga, I discovered the world of Instagram yoga challenges. This was during a busy and somewhat stressful time in my life, and I decided to give participating in a challenge a shot. It seemed like a good way to ensure I got in even just a short practice every day, and gave me an excuse to take a break from everything else that was going on.
The challenge gave me a few things that I wasn't expecting too. For one, it opened my eyes to an entire community of yogis I had no idea existed. They gather from all over the world on Instagram and they share their thoughts, ideas, practices, small businesses and sometimes even the stories of their lives. They connect to each other from far and near and offer support to each other. Many of them are stay at home moms who are self-taught yogis with home practices looking for a community to share their journey with. They are beautiful. They ARE inspiring. And for most, the inspiration they offer has precious little to do with the fancy poses or unattainable body types I see brought up so often in criticisms of "Instagram yoga."
The other discovery I happily made was that participating in a yoga challenge helped to do more than get me on my mat everyday. It challenged me to try new poses (some of which I'd never seen). It took me out of my comfort zone and inspired me. It was about WAY more than the vanity of selfie taking it gets boiled down to so often. It did help me to grow my practice and I often found myself frankly writing about how many tries it took to get an actual picture of a posture or sharing a picture that was not a "perfect" expression of the posture. I found it a good tool for breaking through ego - not a way to serve or feed it.
At the beginning of July, feeling a bit stagnant in my practice and wanting to keep inspired, I joined another challenge. This one simply gives you a word and you choose the posture that it inspires you to share. It has been a great way for this pregnant yogi-momma to keep up with her prenatal practice. It won't be the last time I turn to this online community to enrich and inspire my practice. Accuse me of vanity all day long. I'll just be over on my IG account with people too busy walking their own yogic path to be casting judgement on what, where or how others choose to carry on with their practices.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci

The floor is warm and smooth under my feet. Closing my eyes, I stretch my toes wide and begin to rock my weight back and forth between toe and heel. Finally comfortably rooted and centered, I begin to move my awareness up my body: legs rising long, low back lengthening down, shoulders line up with hips and ears, crown of the head rising. Breathing into my stillness, I feel my ribs expand and release over and over, the rhythm centering me. Gradually the time for stillness draws to a close. My breath whispers to my bones, my muscles, my soul: move. And I do.

Cleaning the studio floor between hot yoga flow classes the other night I had an interesting conversation with a student who had rushed in early to enjoy the heat.  She confessed to me that she was trying to get into yoga, which prompted me to ask whether it was her first class.  She told me that it wasn't, she had been to a few hot flow classes.  Her face scrunched up and there was a slight pause before she followed this with "I come to yoga for a workout.  I don't like the spiritual part of it, I find it distracting. My theory is that the harder classes have less of it [philosophy]."  Despite myself, I felt my shoulders tense and I'm fairly certain the look on my face was not the open and non-judgemental one the yogini in me would have liked it to be.  "That's interesting," I said as I turned to put away the mop and vinegar. 
After class I found myself reviewing the conversation in my mind.  I shared it with the owner of the studio.  I shared it with other teachers.  I knew that the conversation had affected me and had gotten my back up.  I knew that I had feelings about my reaction and that I wished I had been more supportive of the student and her prerogative.  But I couldn't quite figure out why I had reacted the way I did. 
In my mid-twenties I ended an unhealthy relationship.  It was the hardest and easiest thing I had ever done and, even though it was a time fraught with uncertainty, I was excited for a brighter and better future, a hope that was soon shattered as my ex's behaviour took an obsessive and scary turn.  By the time the ordeal was over, I found my life in tatters and myself housebound with anxiety disorder and PTSD.  I didn't know what was wrong with me, but I knew that I was severely unhappy, scared of everything from shadows on the wall to unidentified bumps in the night, and unable to function in my life, or even get out of bed most days.  I needed help.  I reached out and soon began weekly counselling appointments, taking anxiety medication and finding my way back to my yoga practice, which had fallen to the wayside in the chaos of the split and ensuing stalking. 
My counsellor was also a yoga teacher and so my weekly counselling appointments included breath work and looking at the asanas that challenged me most, as well as tools for incorporating yoga philosophy into my daily life and thought processes, all of which helped to reverse the patterns that a mentally abusive relationship and subsequent stalking had helped me find my way into. Yoga was the best medicine for me.  I was off of my anxiety medication in less than a year and back to working, living, and yes, leaving bed - and even the house - in due time too. 
While giving a lecture at a recent teacher training a student asked me if I felt that my PTSD and anxiety had been "cured" (when they diagnose you with anxiety disorder/PTSD you are told that it is a permanent, life-long diagnosis because the chemistry in the brain and body has changed with the stress response being altered, and so it is thought that there are no "cures" just coping mechanisms, medications and emotional tools/habits that allow a patient to deal better with the disorder.)  I paused before I answered but knew I had to say what I honestly felt in my heart.  "I know that they say that once the response has altered you can't ever get it back to normal, that it will be a life-long mental health issue. But yes, I do think that PTSD and anxiety no longer affect me, and I do think that yoga played a very large role in changing that. I haven't had any symptoms of either for years now."
I could site studies on the ways that yoga, meditation and breath work affect the central nervous system, cerebral health, thought and behaviour patterns, and even physiological responses to stress or rigorous physical activity, but to me no recounting of a study could have the impact that sharing my personal experience can.  Yoga healed me and  without it I have no doubt my life and health would not be what they are today.  And maybe that is why I struggled to maintain the non-judgement and openness that I longed to with my student that night. My yoga has been such an intense journey and has touched and healed the deepest depths of my being. In the moment, with the church-like glow of soft orange light, tranquil silence and deep warmth of the studio, a space where I have bowed to those once broken parts of my being so many times, I was unable to separate how I needed to travel the path of yoga from the way that she needed to.  And that's okay.  I am only human after all - divine in my imperfection but imperfect, none-the-less. Her yoga journey doesn't need to be the same as mine and no matter how amazing mine has been, or how important that aspect of practice has been for me, it doesn't mean that it needs to be the same for her.  It isn't meant to be the same.  And I'm thankful to her for reminding me of that and for creating a space where I could reflect on the profound impact that yoga has had on my life and be humbled by both how far I've come and how far there is still to go.

Has yoga impacted your physical, mental or spiritual health? For the month of September the Milken Institute of Health at  George Washington University is running a blogging campaign to spread the word about yoga's role in health and wellness. Follow this link for more information on how to participate: http://publichealthonline.gwu.edu/yoga-matters-invitation

When I first began taking yoga classes, I attended the same teacher's class every week.  Her name was Ani. She was Sivanada trained and every class ran through pretty much the same poses, with slight variations - or the opportunity to evolve them into more advanced asana.  Her classes were magical and at the end of the hour and a half session I always felt calm, clear, relaxed and amazing. Beyond that I felt an extreme sense of accomplishment as the repetition allowed me to mark my progress in my practice, something the dancer in me appreciated immensely.  It was just what I needed in my life at that time, and maybe that is where the attachment came from.  You see, after months of my religious attendance in her class, Ani moved away.  Another teacher took over her class, and another after that, but none of them made me feel the same.  And in my little yogini soul I pined for Ani to return.
Fast forward to now and I look back and fully agree that a good dose of yoga philosophy and a lesson in non-attachment was needed.  But at the time, I didn't realize the problem was me.  I thought that those other teachers just didn't "have it" the way Ani did.  In hindsight, I was so closed off to experiencing a different kind of class that I missed out on the gifts and talents those other teachers had to offer.
This isn't an easy thing to overcome.  But if we want our practice to evolve, we have to do it.  Each teacher brings a unique set of talents to the table. A unique background, life-experience, language, training, body and style.  As students we can embrace, experience and learn from them or we can focus on how we like so-and-so's class better - a good waste of yoga time if you ask me.
Eventually I got over my perceived need for the classes to be a certain way.  In essence I got out of my head and out of my own way and allowed myself to experience yoga every time I got on my mat. Thank goodness.  Have you ever had, or are you having, an experience like this with your practice? What about other areas of your life?

I was subbing a class on Monday, and there was something off about it.  The postures, my tone of voice, the atmosphere, they were all comparable to any other yoga class I've taught. I just felt different.  Flat, for lack of a better word. When I thought about it, I realized a few things. When I first started at EYS I made a commitment to myself to make each and every class I taught an experience.  I wouldn't say that I've let that go, but where I live, in order to be able to teach the amount of classes I'd like to in a week, I've had to accept a lot of substituting jobs. Now, don't get me wrong, this post isn't about bagging on the perils of subbing vs. having a set schedule, and I've absolutely loved the chance to teach such a variety of classes, but subbing, especially at the last minute, requires adaptability.  And maybe I'm not as well suited to that as I could be.  Does that mean that my classes are terrible when I sub? No, not by a long shot.  Some of the best classes I've taught have been classes I was subbing.  What it does mean is that if my subbing schedule is getting busy, I need to pay attention to and honour my needs and keep myself on an even kilter. I owe that to my students, myself and my friends and family.
One of my yoga teachers uses a sufi quote that goes something like "do not try to draw from your well when it runs dry, instead draw from it when it overflows." I realized during that class that lately I have been drawing and drawing and drawing, but not replenishing at all.  I've been busy caring for a sick two year old, ignoring my own cold, missing my favourite Saturday morning class with Heather Ivany and allowed my home practice to become inconsistent. I've given myself every excuse under the sun while doing so - from "I'll get back to it once the little guy is feeling better" to "all this subbing just throws off my plans for the day" to "this cold just really wears me out." But the fact is, whether it is true that life gets chaotic, we get ill, or plans fall apart, that there is only one cause for not tending to our practice and staying inspired, and that cause is ourselves. 
The experience of teaching is, for me, a symbiotic one.  There is a give and take between student and teacher that creates the class.  So, on Monday, I found myself asking whether I have been holding up my end of the bargain. And the answer was that I wasn't.  The experience I strive to create in my classes includes the sharing of yoga philosophy, inspiring music, creative flows or sequencing that fulfills the students and leaves them relaxed and rejuvenated.  There isn't a set formula for this experience.  It comes from the teacher's inspirations, practice and energy and in turn the students feelings and energy complete it.  And I was dropping the ball on fulfilling those aspects of my life and practice.  I was letting the excuse of un-scheduled classes and a busy home-life disrupt my commitment to my practice, my health and my "me" time, and as a consequence, I wasn't bringing inspiration, a strong personal practice or energy to my teaching.
So what is the solution? Teach less or take on fewer subbing jobs? No.  I love to teach and teaching keeps me happy, fulfilled, purpose-full, and, when I'm not using excuses to drop the ball, very accountable to living my yoga and to my practice. I recognized the feelings I had during class, felt them more deeply as several of the students complimented me (not because I didn't appreciate them, but because I felt in my heart that if I didn't make a change, I wouldn't be able to keep giving them the classes they deserve) and I knew that the time to be pro-active was now.  So I stayed and took the class following mine.  I didn't worry that I needed to eat, or that there were things at home I needed to do.  I tended my inner fire and began to replenish my well.  It wasn't the be all end all,  I've still got work to do, but it was a step back in the right direction.  The well bottom is now damp, instead of dry and the well keeper a little wiser, more vigilant, and a better yogini after the lesson. Namaste.

http://www.myyogaonline.com/about-yoga/learn-about-yoga/the-yoga-pose-youre-doing-wrong-and-how-to-modify-it-safely/

My article on My Yoga Online!

http://www.myyogaonline.com/about-yoga/learn-about-yoga/3-ways-to-cultivate-and-keep-a-home-yoga-practice/p2