Author Archives: Barbie

I am enough. I have enough.

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You guys, I did something new in yoga last week!

I was practicing in the lovely and inspiring Dana Damara‘s class, and her theme centered around the mantra, “I am enough.” When we suffer from feelings of inadequacy, we start to practice in ways that feed our ego, which often don’t coincide with what is actually safe and serving for us. Dana encouraged us to cultivate “enoughness” in our poses, regardless of the complexity of the variation we chose. Learning to believe that we are enough just the way we are calls upon a fundamental principle of yoga: santosa, contentment.

Exploring this theme for myself, an article that was making the social media rounds a while back came to mind. It was a sort-of-condescending article about how Generation Y Yuppies are unhappy because we were raised to think we’re special, so we grow up with inflated self-esteem and an unrealistic sense of entitlement. Although many people took issue with the article’s oversimplification of Gen Y Yuppies’ woes, there are some grains of truth in there. Instead of thinking “I am not enough, I’d better force my foot behind my head to make up for that,” many of us think, “I’m awesome. I deserve to be able to put my foot behind my head.” In the end, it’s the same result: we practice from ego rather than from awareness, increasing our chances of injury and decreasing our chances of physical, mental, or spiritual progress. With my inner princess in mind, I modified the mantra to, “I have enough.” This calls on some additional principles of yoga: tapas (non-excess), brahmacharya (moderation), and aparigraha (non-greed/non-envy).

Variation on tree.

Variation on tree with the ankle crossed over the opposite knee.

So what did I do that was new in that class? Well, balancing has always come easily to me—one teacher informed me it’s because I have big hands and big feet, so don’t get too envious. The first time Eka Pada Galavasana (flying crow arm balance) was ever introduced to me in a yoga class years ago, I was able to do it, at least to some extent. Teachers always give students the option to stay in a variation of tree instead of taking the arm balance, but even though eka pada galavasana hasn’t been feeling as great for me lately as I’m rehabilitating from an injury, I’ve never been able to resist flying. Well, last week in Dana’s class I finally transcended eka pada galavasana’s irresistibility.

I was the only person in the room standing upright with my hands in prayer. In a moment of mental weakness, I fell victim to temptation and made a gesture put my hands down on the floor, but I snapped out of it a moment later and pressed my palms back together, this time resting my thumbs on my lips. I repeated to myself, “I have enough. This is enough.” And it really was.

If we cultivate excessiveness, extravagance, and greed on the mat, these qualities will only flourish in our life off the mat. Sometimes the most advanced practice of yoga is not choosing the contortion that challenges your flexibility nor the acrobatics that challenge your strength. Sometimes it’s choosing the simplicity that challenges your ego.

What do the Yoga Sutras Say About Breathing?

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Q: What do the Yoga Sutras say about breathing?

A: Putanjali outlines several obstacles that prevent us from calming the mind (disease, idleness, doubt, carelessness, laziness, sensuality, delusion, spiritual failure, and instability in the yogic state). He explains that irregular breathing is one of the symptoms of these obstacles’ presence:

These obstacles are accompanied with sorrow, despair, restlessness of the body and irregular breathing (1.31)

Hence, it makes sense that in many yoga classes, teachers will encourage students to observe the quality of the breath to gauge mindfulness, moderation, and equanimity. Putanjali also suggests doing specific breathing practices to calm the mind:

[The mind become tranquil though] controlled exhalation and retention of the breath. (1.34)

Pranayama, which means control of the life force through breath, is the fourth limb of yoga, which comes after asana (the poses):

After perfection of the posture is achieved, the movements of inhalation and exhalation should be controlled. This is pranayama. (2.49)

It’s one thing to be able to do a steady, comfortable, and joyful handstand, arm balance, or back bend. It’s another to also control the breath. Adding in pranayama is what begins to take postures beyond gymnastics and into the realm of yoga. Putanjali doesn’t tell us how to breath, but instead gives us some variables to play with:

Pranayama has external, internal and fixed movements. When regulated according to place, time, and number, they may be either long or short. (2.50)

Different combinations of all of these factors are what make up the various pranayama breathing exercises we practice in yoga class.

There is a fourth sphere of breath control that goes beyond the other three and is transcendental. As a result, the covering of the inner light dwindles away. And fitness of the mind for concentration is gained. (2.51-2.53)

Pranayama is the basis for our journey through the last four limbs of yoga, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation, and non-dualistic consciousness.

I am more than I know myself to be

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When I was a young teen, I used to scour the internet for uplifting quotes that inspired me me to step beyond my perceived limitation, to believe, to hope, and to dream. Years before ever setting foot on a yoga mat, one of the many powerful affirmations I had scrawled in colorful pen in my high school agenda book was “I am more than I know myself to be.” Yoga philosophy is not something someone has to teach us, it is already inside us. It is in our curiosity, in our intuition, and in our wisdom. When a concrete version of yoga philosophy was finally laid out for me in my first yoga teacher training it a huge aha moment for me. It wasn’t that I had learned something new, it was that what I knew all along had been revealed.

I am more than i know myself to be

I am more than i know myself to be

Just one of many related quotes from Shakti Mhi, the teacher of my first yoga teacher training:

Imagine taking a piece of gold and melting it into different forms of jewelry, such as earrings, a ring, a bracelet or a necklace. You show the jewelry to person A, asking him what he sees and he says, “I see earrings, a ring, a bracelet and a necklace.” You show them to person B, asking him what he sees and he says “I see gold.” Person A represents the small self that sees forms and identifies with them. Person B represents the observer who sees the essence beyond forms.

Why Yoga Bootcamp?

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After ten years teaching fitness and yoga and seven years studying Kinesiology and Cognitive Science I’m finally putting it all together: In January, I’m teaching Yoga EMPOWER Bootcamp at Thriveability in San Francisco. This four-week transformational series combines yoga and meditation with fitness and goal-setting to provide students safe, fun, and motivating, complete mental, physical, and spiritual workout. Here’s why I’m so hyped up about it:

Why Yoga?

Side Plank with Tree

Side Plank with Tree (Photo Credit: Faye Chao)

Yoga is the foundation. It is the ultimate system for letting go of what no longer serves us, coming into acceptance of who we truly are, and realizing our divine purpose. Without the work we do in yoga (or other systems that guide us to develop in the same way), any action we take or goal we set is directionless and purposeless. The present moment awareness that yoga cultivates provides us a springboard from which we can take mindful, intentional action. Also, yoga helps us develop body awareness and flexibility, feels amazing, and is just plain fun.

Why Not Just Yoga?

As with any other type of paradigm that involves physical activity, there are common patterns of muscle imbalance that can arise when yoga is our only form of regimented movement (these imbalances often aren’t from the yoga, we come in with them and can reinforce them in yoga if we’re not careful). Even if we have yoga teachers who enforce alignment meticulously, it doesn’t mean we will rehabilitate these imbalances; often, it means we are discouraged from going into positions where our body shows signs of that imbalance. Yoga is not supposed to be about ego or goals, so we should be content with backing off and taking it easy, right? This is great for avoiding injuries on the mat, but it avoids problems rather than addressing them, so it allows us to retain imbalances that may lead to injury off the mat during our day-to-day movements.

It’s so amazing and healing to be able to think to yourself, it’s okay that I can’t do handstand. I’m perfect the way I am. But, without losing touch with that thought, it’s also worthwhile to question, why can’t I do handstand? Where am I losing the energy that is supposed to be holding me up? If the energetic bottleneck is something physical, it’s doesn’t really make sense to address it only with the spiritual practice of yoga (especially if you’ve been doing yoga for years and nothings changed). Drawing on the extensive knowledge of kinesiologists, exercise specialists, fitness instructors, and physical therapists would be much more directed and intentional.

Why Fitness?

Core Twist

Core Twist (Photo Credit: Faye Chao)

Fitness helps us fill in the gaps of our yoga practice so we can maintain strong, healthy, functional, injury-free bodies. Developing body awareness, stability, strength, endurance, and power using fitness allows us to practice a broader range of poses safely. Often, the physically challenging poses offered as options in yoga classes will only ever be available to those who already have the fitness to do them (or who gain that fitness outside of yoga). Regular yoga classes often don’t provide the frequency, intensity, and type of movements to elicit the significant training effects needed to build the strength for a challenging pose like handstand.

For example, in yoga we do moderate-intensity core work as part of our warm-up or prep-work to bring awareness and circulation into the core and prime these vital muscles for the rest of class. It makes the core more able to contract properly in the short term. In fitness, we do high-intensity core work toward the end of class. The goal in this case is to fatigue the muscles, which is essential for improving strength and endurance over time. However, it makes the core less able to contract in the moment, which is why it’s safer to do at the end of class.

Personal Experience: After doing both yoga and fitness for years, I cancelled my gym membership and started doing vinyasa yoga almost exclusively. It only took a year of this for me to developed some painful imbalances and hypermobilities in my body that kept getting worse the more I practiced yoga. Everyone told me to stick to gentle classes, but the gentle poses made me feel worse than anything else. It wasn’t until I started doing Pilates and rehabilitative exercises that my body finally started recovering. Not only was I in less pain, as I strengthened my glutes, my hip flexibility increased instead of decreasing. Once my body was more stable it was safer for it to open up. As I strengthened my core to support my aching spine, a side effect was that poses that had never been accessible to me before started showing up. All of a sudden I could stick a handstand–if only for a couple seconds. I began to see poses like handstand not as an end goal, but as a check-in on stability, integrity, balance, and body awareness.

Doing fitness is not only about the physical benefits, there’s a philosophical aspect to it, too. It’s one thing to have a vision and a purpose, and even to clearly see your path (yoga and meditation are phenomenal forms of self-study that allow you to establish these things). It’s another thing to have the drive and know-how to follow the path toward your intention. In one of my college classes, we learned that will power is like a muscle: if you overuse it, it becomes burnt out; but if you practice it regularly without exhausting it, you’ll slowly build its strength and endurance. By adding fitness into our weekly practice, which–unlike yoga–is goal-oriented, we develop our tenacity, our determination, our perseverance, and our will. When we experience ourselves achieving our what we said we would achieve (especially if the goal was audacious), we begin to trust our own words, and our intentions become more powerful.

Why Inversions and Arm Balances?

Eka Pada Galavasana

Eka Pada Galavasana (Photo Credit: Faye Chao)

1. They’re fun.

2. They are informative. If you wanted know where you tend to collapse in your body, do handstand and you’ll find out immediately. While many other poses whisper bits and pieces of feedback that are easy to miss, arm balances and, even more so, inversions give you a full presentation on a loudspeaker with PowerPoint slides.

3. They are empowering. The first time we see an inversion or an arm balance, our immediate reaction is, I can’t. But then (after a little work, perseverence, and guidance), it turns out we can, it helps us re-evaluate other possibilities in your life we’ve dismissed. Very few things are impossible. It just takes practice to identify and diligently follow the path to your wildest dreams.

Why So Often? Why so long? Why so early?

I want Yoga EMPOWER Bootcamp to remind you how powerful you and inspire you to tap into that power to achieve your divine purpose. The program is 5-days-a-week (Monday to Friday) at 6am for 4 weeks. To make radical changes in our lives, we must practice new habits regularly and for a sustained period. We alternate what we do everyday so we never end up with overworked or fatigued, and we take weekends off to we can recharge our will power and maintain balance in our lives. As with any program for improving fitness, it takes six weeks to see significant results, and I wouldn’t want you to miss out on experiencing what your capable of by cutting the program any shorter. However, for now, we’re offering a trial version of the program that’s only four weeks long, which is a little easier to commit to. Stay tuned for the full six-week version.

Down dog on the Wall with Leg Lift

Down dog on the Wall with Leg Lift (Photo Credit: Faye Chao)

6am is earlier than most of us have anything planned, so there aren’t many excuses for not showing up. It’s hard to get up that early for six whole weeks, but each of us knows we’re capable of it–it’s another way we will develop will power. Also, when we’re waking up that early every day, we start to feel the effects of our lifestyles. They’re amplified. If we pay a even an iota of attention to our energy levels, it will become painfully apparent which lifestyle choices allow us to get out of bed and do an intense workout first thing in the morning, and which leave us running late, groggy, and unable to harness our power.

See you bright and early on January 6th at Thriveability!

I am so excited to share this program with you. I truly, wholeheartedly believe it will help you realize your purpose, develop the skills to achieve it, and learn some fun poses along the way.

Five Aha Moments from Wanderlust

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This year, my lululoves at lululemon athletica Union Square, San Francisco, treated me to indulge in four full days of the Squaw Valley Wanderlust Festival. I am so grateful to them and to the Wanderlust organizers. The festival blew me away; it totally exceeded my expectations. In the spirit of sharing the love, here are five things I learned from my weekend in the mountains:

1. According to Annie Carpenter, in challenging poses, our bodies have “escape valves” that keep us from holding steady and strong. For example, in handstand, many yogis collapse into the lower back or shoulders, so they have no choice but to fall out of the pose. To learn to hold a challenging pose, yogis must identify the root of their personal escape valve (be tightness, weakness, fear, or something else), and then instead of try to find their way around it or compensate for it, address it and move through it.

2. Matt Giordano taught one of the most intentional flows I’ve practiced in a while. Each pose was built on the foundation of previous poses. Among many other things, from Matt I learned that a twist is a twist, not a backbend. In revolved high lunge, we tend to cock the front hip out to the side as an escape valve (thanks for the terminology, Annie Carpenter) so that we can backbend instead of twist, and still feel like we’re in the pose. Matt had us “go into the dysfunction” (as Amy Ippoliti labelled a similar contrast in one of her workshops) by cocking the hip out to the side and then harnessing it back into proper alignment; by hyperextending the spine and then restabilizing. I’m not sure I’ve ever truly twisted that deeply in my life.

3. In Amy Ippoliti‘s Core Potential workshop, I learned that this pose is a thing:

We warmed up for it doing some pretty fun and funky core stuff, which I will definitely share with you in my upcoming public classes.

4. My friend and fellow yoga teacher, Nacera, and I showed up for Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa’s workshop about 20 minutes late, and as we approached the giant tent, we saw that all 150-200 students were dancing their hearts out. Both of us were pretty tentative about going in there. One of us suggested going to another workshop and the other said, “maybe they’ll stop dancing by the time we get in there.” They didn’t. But as soon as we kicked off our shoes and rolled out our mats, we immediately joined into the shimmying, shaking, and twirling. It was contagious!

Dancing with Gurmukh

Nacera and me dancing with Gurmukh (Selfie credit: Nacera Mekki)

The workshop ended with a yummy 17 minute savasana. Afterward, Nacera and I went to thank Gurmukh for her workshop. We said, “We’re totally blissed out.” She replied “Keep it going. That’s reality.” Woah. Bliss is reality. Yoga just reminds us to notice that.

5. To end my Wanderlust weekend, I had two workshops in a row that referred to sankalpa, which means divine purpose, will, or oathe. In Sienna Sherman‘s workshop, we were asked to identify our personal sankalpa as yoga teachers. At the time of that workshop, I identified my sankalpa as empowering people to choose their path rather than moving through life mindlessly and without questioning. I went straight from that into Yoga Nidra with Rod Stryker, which consisted of two long sessions of complete relaxation. The first session was lovely and blissful. In the second session I was completely distracted from my Yoga Nidra by a deluge of ideas for my upcoming Yoga EMPOWER Bootcamp at Thriveability. I realized this six-week program is the ultimate vehicle to realize my sankalpa. Stay tuned for more info about it and sign-up now if you’re interested, because space is limited!

I cannot wait for Wanderlust next year!