Last week, I was venting some frustrations, and with a sympathetic ear, my troupemate listened and then coached me to do something about it. Put my dreams on paper. This was followed by a timely post by Paulette of Gypsy Caravan. Apparently the universe is cooperating to make space for my dreaming. At the moment, this is just a little seed of a dream, an intention I'm sending out into the universe.

I want to teach yoga and dance alongside other mind-body teachers and build community among each other and our students.

I could see it happening formally, in a studio setting. What is more appealing to me, and seems more likely at the moment, is that it would be an informal arrangement in a community center or some other public place. The teachers would work as a collaborative, promoting each other's classes. Once a month we'd a have a "yoga jam" which I imagine would be sort of like a cross between a Mysore-style practice and a yoga hafla.

That's about as far as I've gotten at the moment. I give myself permission to stick to this dream and make it happen, and I'm riding on my troupemate's and Paulette's confidence that the very act of writing an intention starts to put things in action. Maybe one of you is excited about my idea, or knows some one who would be interested in participating.

I just downloaded this great Yoga Font and had to give it a try! Each character on the keyboard has an image of an asana. This has great potential for using in my lesson plans and creating handouts. I love to be organized!

I want to share with you what I created! I've attached to this post a simple and fun sequence of seated postures that will open the hamstrings and hips and calm the mind.

Download the PDF, try it out and let me know what you think!

I always give my students the opportunity to request things they'd like to work on, because hey, it's their class and I want to make them happy! Finally someone took me up on it. One of my students wants to work on handstand. Handstand, I think is special, because it represents a mile-marker in strength and also in overcoming fear. Perhaps only I say that because it is definitely the scariest inversion for me personally! I've been playing with inversions a lot in my practice lately, doing prep poses to build strength and mobility around my shoulder girdle and upper back, as well as core-strengthening poses for stability. As for full-on inversions, I've been mixing it up between pincha mayurasana, headstand, and handstand. I've been playing with different ways to move into them to see what feels good to me and which way might be most appropriate approach for this group of students. After taking an inexplicable hiatus from inversions a while ago, I am having tons of fun exploring this area of my practice again. This is making me curious about how other people practice!

Some teachers and traditions teach inversions at the wall. This is how I learned. It is all about kicking up and using the wall for support and then learning to shift away from the wall for balance. Other instructors teach inversions in the middle of the room, building strength and balance by practicing the actions required for the inversion, and not necessarily going all the way.

Which way did you learn? How do you practice now? Do you prefer one way over the other?

One of my favorite yoga bloggers just posted an excellent perspective on why you might be slipping around on your yoga mat in your practice.

I teach hot yoga classes and this is an issue that comes up a lot! Sometimes it is the mat that's slippery, but sometimes it's actually you that's slippery one! If you've got a quality mat and you're still lacking stability in your postures, Mr. Om Shanti addresses how to check the execution of your asana to help correct your slipperiness.

To his list I'll add Vrksasana (Tree Pose). Some people will try to hike up their pants leg to solve slippery pants syndrome. Of course, if you're sweating a lot your bare leg might also exhibit slippery leg syndrome. Here's how to correct this problem without fretting about your outfit!

First, take a nice solid Tadasana. Take a few breaths and connect to your inner stability. Grow roots through your standing foot and allow your other foot to become light. Trace your leg with your hand from your thigh towards your shin and place the sole of the foot on the inner thigh (or shin). Now, focus on strongly squeezing your inner thighs together. This action will result in your lifted foot pressing into the thigh as the thigh presses back into the foot with equal strength. Your foot should stay in place! Now that you don't have to worry about that wandering foot, tuck the tailbone towards the ground, lift the heart towards the sky and spread your arms wide and high, celebrating your newfound stability in vrksasana!

There's a very interesting article over at the Huntington Post written by Sadie Nardini (super awesome vinyasa yogini from NYC). In this article, she "comes out of the closet" about her meat-eating ways. She calls out the yoga community about being judgmental about omnivores and for putting pressure on practitioners by accusing them of being "less yogic" by eating meat.

As you may know, I'm vegetarian. It's something I'm passionate about, and I'm so grateful for the abundance of the earth and the many delicious fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes that are available to me. I don't consider myself a hard-core evangelist for the vegetarian cause, but I do think that many people could stand to eat more mindfully by eating a plant-based diet and making choices that are gentle to our environment.

It may surprise you, then, that I totally agree with Sadie. As Sadie, astutely points out, "In many places, a vegetarian or vegan diet is not possible, and more expensive than the average salary can afford. It's not only spiritual-ist but classist to demand it as a prerequisite." As much as I'm thankful for the abundance of the earth, I'm also thankful that really I have the luxury of actually having a choice of what I can eat. At any time of the year, I can procure just about any sort of food item I want... and on top of that, I can buy organic, local, or grow my own food.

One statement in particular really jumped out at me:

"There is a strong "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the yoga community that is keeping students, and even many teachers, locked firmly inside the meat-eating closet. If they do tell, they run the risk of being placed somewhere along the imaginary, self-created spectrum of yoginess, usually more towards the bottom than the vegans among us.
One result of this is that yoga is getting a bad rap, as a culture of Yogier-Than-Thou, which has people running back to the gym in droves. No one wants to be made to feel like a lesser being, especially while already lurching around in Tree Pose like a drunken sailor. And I'm sick and tired of seeing it happen again and again in studios across the country, proving to potential students that they are not welcome as they are...but will be only if they plan to change."

Although this article is specifically about diet, Sadie really gets the big picture here. Or should I say, she gets to the meat of the matter. (uh... sorry) This dietary judgment thing is only one in an influx of yoga-fundamentalism and egoism that is cropping up in all sorts of ways in the yoga community. I would consider all the new "brands" of yoga a symptom of this as well.

I have definitely been on the receiving end of this Yogier-Than-Thou treatment and it is not cool! I recognize that in the seat of the teacher, one has an obligation to be a leader and to guide students. However, that is not a free pass to manipulate people or make them feel bad about themselves. In addition, people come to yoga for all sorts of reasons, and not necessarily for the spiritual benefits or philosophical discussions. While I love to plant seeds of the yamas and niyamas in my classes, I would never dream of sizing up a student and be like ... "WHOOAAA! Someone sure has a problem with satya up in here! You'll never reach sammadhi the way you're headed!"

So, in sum, I'm on board with Sadie. It's a bold thing to do to call out the community at large, but we could definitely stand to spread around that ahimsa we're always going on about and show some compassion and understanding towards our brothers and sisters throughout the yoga community.

And who wouldn't love a yogini who cooks up something as awesome as a rock and roll mantra!

I have noticed in my own practice, and even more as I am now a teacher, there are certain poses that the ego likes to claim as mile markers, that we often find ourselves using to compare to other yogis or even just to judge ourselves. First, it really does no good to compare your self to anyone else. Your practice is just that. It's YOURS. Your body is differently shaped. You have unique talents as well as unique challenges. In addition, self-doubt and fear inhibits our practice even before we attempt that challenging pose or dare to go deeper into a familiar one.

My recent work on pincha mayurasna has prompted me to write a bit more deeply about inversions, because it can be so easy to get hung up on this class of poses and frustrate yourself when results don't happen immediately.

My very first time attempting headstand was terrifying. I had just started a session of yoga classes with a new teacher, and he talked us through it. I couldn't do it, and came up to the instructor after class, pretty much freaking out and scared I wasn't "good enough" to keep up with the class. He was confident that I was at the right level and encouraged me to stick with it.... and I did! I took a very long time for me to be able to get there, but I did eventually get the point where I could get up into headstand and hold it (and on a good day, I'm even graceful about it!)

Inversions can be very intimidating and really, more often it's the mental rather than the physical that is the challenge. So I present to you...

Inversion Mantras

• I am strong. If you're not sure about this, see your instructor. Most likely the answer will be yes, you are strong enough to hold your own weight in some way. We often doubt our own strength and it's a wonderful thing to realized your own power!
• I am light. This one is trickier. A fun thing to practice is to hang out in downward dog and kick your legs up, one at a time or together. Imagine your hips filling with helium and floating up rather than kicking with your feet. When your upside down, imagine a string pulling your tailbone towards the sky.
• It's OK to fall down. I have been known to do the following things when I wipe out: say "OOPS!", scream, crack up laughing. If I'm at home, I also occasionally build a fort of pillows and blankets to make me feel better about falling over because I'll at least have something soft to land on.

As for me, pincha mayurasana is coming along and I can kick up pretty consistently. I'm still working to find my balance in the pose, and I'm having a blast playing with this one!

I just got back from yet another excellent dance workshop with tribal dance duo, Kassar, and my sweet yoga friend, Ali, of n.o.madic tribal. It was such an inspiring weekend that challenged my brain, spirit, and body. Doing these dance workshops, along with the ATS General Skills training reminds me that I am a lot stronger and more capable than I realize in my day-to-day practice. A teacher of mine once said that we do things for our teachers that we do not do for ourselves. It's so easy to fall into a rut, sometimes without even noticing, when you are just practicing on your own. This is why it's so wonderful to attend classes, to challenge yourself, play your edge, and see where you can go in your practice.

Inspiration in your practice can come from many places. Recently a friend of mine joined a new yoga class and is excited by the challenge. I'm joining her in a sort of informal asana-off working towards pincha mayurasana. It's a pose that, honestly, I've never really attempted, but will be really fun to work on!

Here's what my pincha mayurasana prep sequence looks like:
Sun salutations
Standing pose flow
Navasana/Boat
Dolphin with pushups OR chaturanga prep (plank on forearms)
Seated shoulder openers
Supta Virasana/Reclining Hero
Sirsasana/Headstand OR Adho Mukha Vrksasana/Handstand
Ardha Pincha Mayurasana (Eventually full Pincha Mayurasana will go here!)
Janu SIrsasana/Head of Knee Pose
Reclining Twist
Savasana

To The Duke*:

I have come to realize that in spite of your advertised weight being a mere seven pounds, you seem to make my yoga bag about fifty pounds heavier. Therefore, your permanent home will be in my studio, where I'm sure you will get to be good friends with your partners, the Zafu and Zabuton,** who also live there. You will serve me much better there by giving stability to the plush carpet for those tricky balancing poses. When I come back from doing yoga away from home, I will appreciate that extra inch of room you give me for my hands in down-dog even more. So don't be jealous when you see me leaving with that ratty old mat that the cats have clawed to pieces. It's just that she weighs next to nothing.

You're the best. Thanks for understanding.

With love,
The Om Chantress

*The Duke is my giant yoga mat, a Manduka.
**These are meditation cushions.

I just got back from Orlando, Florida, where I attended American Tribal Style General Skills training with Carolena Nericcio of Fat Chance Belly Dance. I am now officially trained in the movement vocabulary, cues, formations, and core concepts of American Tribal Style belly dance. It was truly an experience that changed me from the inside out and I am so looking forward to applying what I have learned both in performance and with my students!

June’s DCTribal Café is going to be Hot, Hot Hot this month! I'll be dancing with my troupe, Kallisti Tribal!

Part dinner show, part gathering of friends DCTribal Café is a great way to spend Sunday night!

Sit back and be entertained by cutting edge tribal fusion belly dance performances by three professional dancers while enjoying Asylum’s down-to-earth but oh so heavenly menu – full of the regular standard American fare and extensive vegan and vegetarian offerings. With your tribal café admittance you get ½ price discount on burgers and $2 off select draft beer.

This month DCTribal Café is proud to host performances by
Mavi
Belladonna
Kallisti Tribal, introducing newest member Flissy! (hey, that's ME!)

Sunday June 28, 2009
6pm – 9pm
Asylum Bar & Lounge

2471 18th Street, NW
Washington DC 20009
$10 cover, please tip your dancers and waitstaff generously!

With the music of DJ MELLIE MEL in between dancer's sets! Doors at 6pm, performances start at 7pm – get there early for the best seats!