From ME to WE - Baptiste Level Three Pacific Grove CA 2018

Shifting from the headspace of 'me' to 'we' doesn't come easily. Identifying blind spots, getting clear on what is actually happening takes attention and dedication.

The core of our inquiry work during Level Three began with the worksheet we were given Monday evening.

Identify a person in your life where things are stuck (stuck in a rut, stuck in unworkability, stuck in upset and so on.) Write that name on the line below.

Inside the box, describe the relationship as it is right now - the mood, results, the conversations, etc. You can use words, pictures, sentences, etc.
I picked a current complaint person who I don't have much "charge" around but is a current complaint. I knew I was selecting an easy person because in the past I have actively avoided speaking of or complaining about those people with whom I've severed the ties of past relationships. I am also aware that just because I don't verbalize my past relationship struggles, doesn't mean I've actually dealt with those emotions. It only means I've buried them.

I worked with the person I'd selected to put in the box, not getting much out of the exercises. The "fire" at the root of the relationship with the person you've put in the box is that there is a broken agreement. The things you say about that person or situation are simply smoke and not the real root of the situation. At the end of Wednesday evening, Baron gave us the last in the steps on "The Way Out" and only then was I ready to delve into addressing a previous "stuck" relationship.

The steps to The Way Out are:

1. Forgiveness
2. Apology
3. Declaration
4. Make a new agreement or promise
5. Stop it!

Now that I had the full toolset to address who was in the box, I felt safer to put a more charged person in the box. Even still, I didn't want to put pen to paper in the journal where I kept all my Baptiste Program notes. I tore out a page from a different notebook and put Greg in the box. The relationship is with my ex-husband. The broken agreement was that I would love, honor and cherish him til death do us part. I forgive myself for not being honest, I apologize for letting it go on so long, making it harder on both of us and for not telling him myself. I declare the agreement to love, honor and cherish him til death do us part to be complete. The new agreement I make is to honor our shared past for what it was and what it wasn't.

Thursday morning, the first participant to share was reticent to say the name of other person in their stuck relationship. I identified strongly with this sentiment. The woman who was sharing was standing right next to me and some of the emotion in her sharing was in direct alignment with what I was feeling about my "Life in the Box" exercise. I shared this with her as we broke into pairs to share on the overnight assignment. I told her about me not wanting to say his name, to not want to bring his name out into this space. I had it that if I did that, it would give him power and ownership over me. I shared again on this with my small group at lunch - how her share had impacted me and how I felt haunted by my past. I was beginning to see that not speaking of the person and the past is what gives it a power. The exact opposite of what I'd been thinking (which wasn't working).

When we returned from lunch to seats for sharing, I raised my hand right away to share. Baron called on me and I went to the mic and shared on the relationship, reluctantly said Greg's name at the mic, stated what I could forgive myself for, what I could forgive Greg for and what I could apologize for. After a few minutes at the mic of back and forth dialogue and questioning, Baron said something that I haven't heard stated in this way before - that we should leave people greater after our leaving. I thought about that for a time, thinking back to where I handled things badly. I see that me not honoring the past is what keeps the fire of the broken agreement alive. I see that by me not speaking and sharing, I am making it about me, withholding self and undermining others by hiding. Several people came up to me and said my share had helped them and for that I am grateful. It was not easy to put those words out into the present moment. Verbalizing thoughts and feelings of mine has been difficult for me in the past. Stepping out in front of when I want to take myself out of the situation by saying "I don't have to do this." is the work that I am in now.

Baptiste Level Three: Beyond Borders Pacific Grove Dec 2018

How did Level Three get here so soon? On December 1st, I'm getting on a plane to fly out to San Jose, starting the journey towards the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, CA. Obviously, coastal California in December is a very different climate than what I'm used to prepping for in Phoenicia, NY for my previous Baptiste programs. Yes, I'm stressing on what to pack..

As always, I've packed early. I like knowing all my things will fit in one carry on suitcase and the extra space left in my big old Manduka mat bag. With a week left for daydreaming what I might need in Asilomar - based on what I forgot that I could've used at Menla - I've added a few things to my packing kit for Level Three. We'll see if I need everything I've packed or if I've misjudged completely soon enough.

I've added these extra things into my packing bag after apprenticing Level One this summer at Menla.

• 4 small binder clips (to hang up towels to dry on the commando hooks)
• More commando hooks (you can never have enough)
• A good length of painters tape wrapped around a tiny laminated loyalty card (you never know when you need some tape, and painters tape won't peel paint or leave residue)
• 5 or 6 long zip ties (again, you never know)

Since most yoga pants don't have pockets - or at least not enough pockets to hold all the stuff I like to have at my mat during program - I made a thing. I'm pretty excited about it too. I used a can koosie (which I've had but never used) and upcycled it into a neoprene collar for my Camelbak bottle.



Apprenticing at Level One had me needing a pen, wanting my essential oil nearby, and let's not forget the joy of having a chapsick handy. I'd put some rubber bands around my water bottle to hold the stuff to it, but everything got soggy when my bottle sweated. It's not an insulated bottle, but I'm attached to it :)

I cut off the bottom of the koosie, opened one seam with a seam ripper and used a scrap of 2 inch wide elastic I'd had left over from another project. I measured the area I'd need for the essential oil bottle, marked with chalk and sewed a top stitch on the elastic to make the first slot. Next, the chapstick, then a final slot for a pen. On the other side of the koosie, I made a pocked big enough to hold a few business cards or electrolyte packets. I sewed down the bottom of the business card pocket so things won't slide out the bottom.

I didn't bother to change out the white thread in my serger because this is the prototype sleeve. We'll see how well it works to keep all my little stuff handy during the Level Three program.

Oblique Strategies 7 Week Yoga Study

My recent mashup of two non related topics is the Oblique Strategies 7 week yoga study I'm currently doing at Jai Dee Yoga in Seminole Heights, Tampa, FL. The Oblique Strategies card deck is the brain child of Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt (first published in 1975).

From the deck: "These cards evolved from separate observations of the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognised in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated.

They can be used as a pack, or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear..."
At the beginning of class, I shuffle the deck and pull a card. The card provides the direction for the them of the yoga class.

The Gifts of Imperfection 15 Week Yoga Study

Following quick on the heels of the Braving The Wilderness Brené Brown yoga study, I went back to my copy of The Gifts of Imperfection and pulled from each chapter as the theme for Saturday's yoga classes. I also raffled off three copies of Brené's book as the conclusion to the study series ♥

Week 1. Wholehearted Living
Week 2. Courage, Compassion and Connection
Week 3. Exploring the Power of Love, Belonging and Being Enough
Week 4. The Things That Get In The Way
Week 5. Cultivating Authenticity - Letting Go of What People Think
Week 6. Cultivating Self-Compassion - Letting Go of Perfectionism
Week 7. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit - Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness
Week 8. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy - Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark
Week 9. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith - Letting Go of the Need for Certainty
Week 10. Cultivating Creativity - Letting Go of Comparison
Week 11. Cultivating Play and Rest - Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and Productivity as Self-Worth
Week 12. Cultivating Calm and Stillness - Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle
Week 13. Cultivating Meaningful Work - Letting Go of Self-Doubt and "Supposed To"
Week 14. Cultivating Laughter, Song and Dance - Letting Go of "Being Cool" and "Always In Control"
Week 15. Final Thoughts

Braving The Wilderness: 7 Week Yoga Study

I love Brené Brown's writing and as soon as her book Braving the Wilderness was released, I bought a copy and brought it into my Saturday morning yoga classes at Jai Dee as a theme of exploration.

Everywhere and Nowhere
The Quest for True Belonging
High Lonesome: A Spiritual Crisis
People Are Hard to Hate Close Up. Move In.
Speak Truth to Bullshit. Be Civil.
Hold Hands. With Strangers.
Strong Back. Soft Front. Wild Heart.

12 Week Personal Transformation: A Yoga Study

At the tail end of last year, I began a themed twelve week journey through the "12 Laws of Personal Transformation" - taken from 40 Days to Personal Revolution by Baron Baptiste. Each class began with a quote that I'd found that fit the theme of the week and the challenge for me was to speak to the theme throughout the class.

My personal challenge this year has been to speak more from the heart as I lead asana. Having a predetermined theme at the outset of the class gives me a structure to work around, especially if the theme/concept is short and simple. The short theme/concept also helps when naming the audio recordings from class as I upload them online.

Sometimes I have recording failures (forget to start the recording, forgetting to shut down the recorder properly), but I managed to get a majority of these 12 laws recorded and shared online. You can find them in the usual places online:

bit.ly/JTYITUNES
bit.ly/JTYGOOGLE
bit.ly/JTYSPOTIFY
bit.ly/JTYIHEARTRADIO

Here is a list of the recordings I have from this 12 week journey:

THE 12 LAWS OF TRANSFORMATION

1. Seek the truth. 
2. Be willing to come apart.
3. Step out of your comfort zone. 
4. Commit to growth.
5. Shift your vision. 
6. Drop what you know. 
7. Relax with what is.
8. Remove the rocks. 
9. Don’t rush the process. 
10. Be true to yourself. 
11. Be still and know. 
12. Understand that the whole is the goal.

Thoughts From Behind The Tech Desk

Sitting behind the Tech Desk at Level One offered me a unique perspective, literally and figuratively. I was apprenticing the Level One Baptiste training and I'd mentioned I'd love to learn about what's involved in running the Tech Desk. I got the chance to shadow & then run it on Thursday morning.

That Thursday morning started with meditation and then the group self practice - to recreate Journey Into Power from Integration through Igniting.

Let me take you back to my first self practice of Level One in 2016. I was in the front row, far away from the Journey Into Power poster of the sequence and poses. I began my self practice, moving through the Sun A Salutations but when I began the Sun B sequence, my practice fell apart. I didn't know what poses (or how many of which) made up one complete Sun B. I faltered, and came to child's pose. I thought that everyone behind me must know that I don't know what I'm doing. We were asked to memorize Journey Into Power before arriving for Level One. I thought I had done that, I thought I knew it from so many years practicing at Breath and Body. I was wrong. I felt defeated, crushed by my inability to know what to do next. I began to cry, feeling like a failure, like a fraud, like everyone could clearly see that I didn't know what I was doing. Crying and feeling worthless, I began again with the Sun A Salutations, not know what else to do. When we broke for lunch, I sought out a more knowledgable yogi and asked him what are all the poses for a Sun Salutation B and what is the ending pose?

It seems like such a simple thing, not knowing what the collection of yoga poses are that are a Sun B, but I made it into much more than that. I made that not knowing into a sign on my back that said "This lady doesn't know what she's doing. She's a fraud." I couldn't shake the feeling that my not knowing had been witnessed and judged.

Fast forward to that Thursday morning behind the Tech Desk. I had the opportunity to watch and witness the self practice of 150+ yogis unfold, at their own pace, with their own breath linking each pose to the next. There was no way I could tell who was doing Journey Into Power correctly or out of order, even if I had tried. Some yogis would sync up with one another as they flowed from section to section, others moved to a rhythm all their own. It was a glorious sight to behold. I felt such a powerful love swelling up in my chest for all the beautiful humans in the room. A room full of yogis moving with their breath from pose to pose, with nobody watching, criticizing, or critiquing. It was only then that I could see how wrong I'd been to judge myself so harshly during my first self practice. There was no critic in this room, only yogis moving with their breath, doing the work, feeling the ground under their feet and the breath in their lungs. The only critic in the room was in my own mind, of my own invention.

Fully realizing this, seeing it with my own eyes allowed me to have a different appreciation for the Journey Into Power sequence and the yogis that were practicing it. Seeing them move from Sun A to Sun B and on through the flow was beauty in motion. Moving for the sake of joy, from memory, for memory, for life, for love, for freedom and growth. Moving just to move. Not moving to be right or beautiful or better or perfect. Moving for love. Love of the practice, love of yoga, love of being alive, the love of being in community, the love of a shared experience.

Do the work and you will have the power. It is as simple (and as difficult) as that.

Baptiste Level One Phoenicia 2018 - Apprenticeship Complete

Apprenticing a Baptiste Yoga Training Program

Soon I will be making my way back to Menla for a third visit! This time around I will have the extreme pleasure of apprenticing the 2018 Baptiste Level One Training. Just two short years ago, I was attending my first Level One training, now I'm going back in co-creation of the program as a team member and as a participant in the development of my own leadership.

Once again, I'm nervous about packing even though this is my third trip to Menla. This time I'll be flying to Albany out of St. Louis and I won't have the luxury of unpacking after a work trip and packing fresh for a trip to Menla. I know, I know, it's a small thing all in all.

I'm back to Menla, but into the unknown. Familiar surroundings, some familiar faces, but an all new experience. I know I will come back home re-energized and full of post-training Baptiste magic. I'm so excited!!

I am confident that very soon, other Tampa area yogis will be going off to their first Baptiste trainings and coming home ready to give back their fresh energy into the local yoga community. It's a beautiful thing and I'm very excited to be a part of it.

Finding Singing Bowls In Unexpected Places

Several months back I did a lot of digging on the Internet, trying to find reasonable prices for crystal singing bowls (the cost for an 8 inch crystal bowl starts around $70 and goes up from there!).

I stumbled across a video by YouTube user Naddycat which he posted over 6 years ago, about his discovery of a Nordic Ware Mini Bundt pan giving off a pleasant sound when struck with a finger/knuckle. Well, I bought my own Nordic Ware Mini Bundt pan off of eBay and I can tell you it does sound amazing with a knuckle but it is even better with a gong mallet (or probably any kind of mallet).

Taking the idea of a bundt pan making a nice sound to the next level, I was at a local thrift store recently and found another polished aluminum bowl which made a nice sound too. Here's a little video to show you a random sampling of things you might find at a thrift store which make a pleasant sound. I highly encourage you to go to your nearby thrift stores and find the common everyday objects that sound good to your ears!

I use the Nordic Ware Mini Bundt pan to bring my yoga students out of savasana with its lovely dulcet tones :) I like that the bundt pan is unbreakable, sounds awesome and I can also use it to bake delicious cakes! Multipurpose FTW. Oh, and it was $20 (including shipping!) - you can't beat that!!!

Shimmering Sequin Signage #DIY

I had an idea to make a sign that I could bring with me when I teach at Jai Dee in Tampa, 801 E. Main Street in Lakeland or any other place that I might get the opportunity to teach at in or around the Tampa Bay area. I've always loved the way sequin signs catch the sunlight and move with the breeze. The parts are available online in 12x12 plastic pre-pinned boards, but they're very expensive. I decided I would use a "handypanel" 2x4ft section of pre-sanded plywood and 1x2x8 strips of wood from the local hardware store and get to work on making my own custom 'pinned' wooden A-frame sign.

I ordered the bags of 20mm sequins from Aliexpress, 8 boxes of WIRE BRADS 18X 5/8 and used a big sheet of packing paper to grid out the proper spacing of the nails to keep the sequins from overlapping. I used a center punch to put a small divot in the plywood sheet at each intersection of the grid (where each nail would go) and then used a pair of flat tipped pliers to hold each nail an equal length from the plywood surface and hammered each nail in.

This is of course after building the sign and painting the surface white with three coats of outdoor rated paint.

The total number of nails used = 3600.

To keep the sequins at a distance from the wood backing (so they'd shimmer in the breeze) I used short 1/4 inch sections of cocktail straws cut down to serve this purpose. After nailing in all the nails, each nail had a cocktail straw spacer placed on it and then I could begin to pop the sequins into place over the wire brads nail heads.



What I had not initially planned for was a safety border around the edges of the sign to keep the nails from getting impaled into the grass when the sign would take an inevitable face plant on a windy day. I'd made the front facing edge of the sign a bit larger (1/8 in) than the underlying frame which made coming up with an edge framing solution a little tricky. Eventually I settled on using small strips of wood to bring the underlying frame out to the same edge as the front of the sign. Then I used wood trim painted white to create a top and sides frame for the sign fronts which will keep the nails and sequins from coming into contact with the ground when the sign falls over.

I finished the protective edging in time to use the sign outside of Jai Dee last weekend. It was a really windy day and the sign fell over a few times with no damage to the sequins. Several people commented on noticing the sign as they drove into the studio and that they could see the sparking sequins from a great distance. I'm thrilled that it came together nicely even though from beginning to end it took about a month of intermittent work (nails/spacers/sequins) and then another couple of months for me to figure out a protection frame and the time to put the framing on the sign.

If you want to make your own sequin sign, it just takes some time, patience and keeping your eye on the finished goal while you do the work that gets you to that goal.

The Great Yoga Mat Bake Off: BMAT vs. Manduka Black Mat Pro

A quality yoga mat is a key component of a regular yoga practice. Too often the mat is chosen in haste or purchased based on price. The yoga mats sold at department stores are not what you want to use for a daily yoga practice. They are thin, smell of chemicals and break down and begin to fall apart within months of purchasing. Do yourself a favor and try out a couple of mats before you make a purchasing decision. Your local yoga studio may have loaner mats you can try or you can ask other students in your classes what made them choose the mat they have. The type of yoga practice you prefer will also influence the type of mat you choose. Hot yoga will most likely require sweat absorbing yoga mat towels (Yogi Toes towels) or extra sticky mats (BMAT, Lululemon,  Jade, Gaiam Sol Dry-Grip).

I came across a BMAT at the Baptiste Level Two training I attended in July of '17. I'd never experienced a mat as sticky and grippy as the BMAT. Level Two training is a very sweaty experience and I never felt my hands or feet slip as I practiced asana on the BMAT. I asked the owner of the mat a few questions about where they got the mat, where it was made etc as I'd not heard of it. I reached out to BMAT once I got back home and asked about an ambassador program to spread the word about BMAT. They sent me a discount code and I used that to get 50% off of a BMAT Strong mat. I'd already purchased a BMAT Everyday but I felt that mat was too thin for my preference. The B MAT is made of 100% rubber (which I think smells good) and initially is a dust magnet (this lessens over time). Cleaning it is as simple as spraying it down with water with a few drops of tea tree oil in the water and letting it dry. The BMAT doesn't roll up super tightly for storage, so you may want to use a mat strap to keep the BMAT contained when not in use.

I'm a fan of my BMAT, and it is so grippy that you must fully commit to jumping back to chaturanga on the BMAT. There is no toes-sliding-into-place wiggle room on the BMAT. If you land short, you land SHORT. The BMAT surface does not offer any sliding at all (which is great!). When I practice at a headed studio with my BMAT, I don't need to use a yogitoes towel on my mat. It doesn't get at all slippery like my Manduka Black Mat Pro has a tendency to do. Less laundry, more BMAT.

All this being said, I'm a BMAT ambassador because I know their mat is amazing and so grippy and everyone who tries it LOVES it. You can get 20% off with this code (which is a great deal!)  AMB20JHUBE --> https://byoganow.com/

Spring Cleaning, Streamlining Efforts

After looking at the listening stats on the audio classes I've been uploading to Mixcloud & Bandcamp it doesn't make sense for me to keep posting classes there because I'm not seeing evidence that anyone is listening from there. I do see pretty good statistics via my Libsyn dashboard and in iTunes Podcasts Analytics. I'm not monetizing the classes I publish online, so the stats are simply telling me where my efforts are best utilized.

Going forward I will be publishing to Libsyn which then makes my classes available in iTunes Podcasts, Google Play Podcasts, Spotify Podcasts, YouTube and iHeart Radio. I'll also stop publishing per-show blog posts because that's redundant if you've found my page or my audio classes via a podcast app. I made a pinned page on this site with quick links to my audio classes in the various places they can be found. Doing this will make sharing my classes less of a chore and more of a streamlined process.

New Classes Recorded and Uploaded

Discover Your Own Truths 60 Minute Baptiste Power Yoga Audio Recording

Law 8: Remove The Rocks - 60 Minute Baptiste Power Vinyasa Audio Recording

This recording was made at Jai Dee Yoga in Tampa, FL. We are on a twelve week journey to personal transformation by focusing on each of the Baptiste Laws of Personal Transformation. The eighth week is Law 8: Remove the Rocks.
We don’t have to solve any of our problems. Our problems will give us up.

Mixcloud
Bandcamp
Libsyn

Law 7: Relax With What Is - 60 Minute Baptiste Power Vinyasa Audio Recording

This recording was made at Jai Dee Yoga in Tampa, FL. We are on a twelve week journey to personal transformation by focusing on each of the Baptiste Laws of Personal Transformation. The seventh week is Law 7: Relax With What Is
The key is in noticing and not reacting.

Mixcloud
Bandcamp
Libsyn

Teaching Yoga From Home

I began teaching yoga from a back room of our home in February of 2017. Here are a few things I did to make the space inviting for practicing yoga. The room is 10x14 and it connects to the kitchen, therefore I made a curtain to divide the room off from the kitchen and provide a neutral place to rest one's gaze. The curtain is double sided - one side is a glittery gold lightweight fabric and the back side is a curtain liner fabric I bought from JoAnn's to obscure the view into the kitchen. It isn't light blocking but it does keep the visual discord of the kitchen hidden from the yogi's view. I used 1/2 electrical conduit piping from THD for the curtain rod and the rod is held up with two 1/2" copper bell hangars (designed for holding plumbing pipes at a distance from a wall. I used a grommet kit like this one to put grommets in the top of the curtain to hang it from ball chain on the curtain rod. I bought a spool of #10 ball chain & the couplers from BallChain.com.

The space has a ventilation duct in the floor which I've blocked with a piece of hard board. I cut the hard board down to fit the vent grill, painted it matte clear and glued two large magnets to the top of the piece. This keeps the AC from coming up into the room when class is taking place. The space heater I found after researching space heaters in home yoga rooms is the Dayton 1500/1000/650W. The room also has a temperature/humidity monitor as well. It takes about 45 minutes for the Dayton to heat the room temperature to 80F in the fall. The room naturally gets warm due to the West facing wall in the summer.


Two of the four walls have lots of windows which I've covered with large mirrors that I've found via Craigslist. There are also two rectangular mirrors on the bottom of the walls so that the yogis can see their alignment in seated poses. I would have liked floor to ceiling mirrors but the design of the windows is such that it's not possible to do this without a major effort.

Over the past year I've been entreating neighbors, friends of neighbors and people I've met in the neighborhood to come over, get on a mat and practice yoga in order for me to practice teaching. It has been hugely rewarding to bring yoga to the neighborhood in a grass roots fashion.

The beautiful thing about this room is that if I need to expand the space and include the kitchen, I can move things around in the kitchen to make space for another three mats! The 10x14 space can fit six mats North to South and three mats in the kitchen facing West.

Law 6: Drop What You Know - 60 Minute Baptiste Power Vinyasa Audio Recording

This recording was made at Jai Dee Yoga in Tampa, FL. We are on a twelve week journey to personal transformation by focusing on each of the Baptiste Laws of Personal Transformation. The sixth week is Law 6: Drop What You Know. We don’t change by thinking; we change by being and doing with a pure intent.

Mixcloud
Bandcamp
Libsyn: