Yoga at Home

Photo taken by Andrea Lynn Taylor at the Key Bridge in Washington, DC. 

One of the most important things I took from my Level One Teacher Training at Tranquil Space was the structure of a Vinyasa Yoga class.  This structure gave me a foundation to fill in for both classes I teach and my home practice.

Wake up the spine, lunge back and forth to down dog, surya namaskar A, warriors and their variations, peak pose (such as an arm balance or intense twist), hips, floor poses, inversion, rest.

When I practice at home, this structure guides me into my next pose or sequence. I listen to my body, feel if it's not warm enough in some part, or if there's a muscle crying out to be stretched. That feeling guides the poses I do, or sometimes I just follow a whim. The best part is, there's no one watching me mess up. That means I don't have to keep track of which poses I've done on which side, how to most gracefully transition from one pose to another or whether I'm ignoring a key area of the body. I just do what comes.

Today I worked on my side crow, a pose I've been sorta able to do for the last few months and forearm stand, the inversion I am challenging myself to master. To warm up for side crow, I did a lot of twists in my warmup and sequence after surya A.  I spent most of actual side crow time with my face in my mat and most of the forearm stand with my feet on the wall (relying on support I should not use). But there was no one there to see me looking like a doofus, so I plated my face on the mat, then pushed my head up to a few inches above my mat for full-on side crow (I lasted about 10 seconds). I slowly eased my feet off of the wall in forearm stand, building my confidence. Sure, they fell in a not-so-quiet plop after a breath of free-balancing, but I was able to get some inversion time!  In short, I made progress with two difficult (at least for me!) poses.

There's something very humbling about practicing alone. Sure, I gravitate towards poses that I enjoy (i.e. poses I'm good at, if I'm being honest), but there's no one around to compare myself to. I can't twist deeper, sink lower or jump quieter than anyone else, because there isn't anyone else. It's just me and my mat. Which means that the image I have in my head of the perfect expression of each pose is my comparison point, and I am very far from perfect in my practice.

All in all, I much prefer practicing with others at my yoga home, Tranquil Space. But every once in awhile, putting aside 45 minutes to an hour to practice on my own at home is a great way to check in on my body without the distraction of yoga buddies or fantastic instructors. I also find it very useful when planning sequences, as it allows me to feel what makes sense as natural pose-to-pose transitions (and what doesn't).

Give it a shot sometime! Unroll your mat in your house and give yourself time and space to explore what comes.

XO,
KCZ

Yoga and Body Image

Dove pose at the Georgetown Waterfront, Washington, DC. Photo Andrea Lynn Taylor.

On Monday, I went on a little photo adventure with a few of my yoga babes, including photographer Andrea. We galavanted along the Georgetown waterfront, popping into our most show-off-y poses when we found a patch of good light, trading tales of yoga party tricks and generally enjoying each other's company.

Beth, Alli and I rounded out our evening with a visit to Good Stuff Eatery where we (decked out in yoga garb) went to town on burgers, fries and beers.

It's been a few days since Andrea posted this "sneak peek" shot from our evening together. I have to admit, it is still hard to believe that I'M the person in the picture. This girl seems so serene, poised and most of all, thin.  How could that be me?

For reference, a "before"  picture. 

I've never considered myself a thin person. There were even times when I felt my body veer over the edge of "normal" to "chubby" or "plump", particularly when I saw my weight come within a burger or two of 200 lbs. Luckily, I was raised well enough to know that I have more to offer than my looks. I always assumed that I could simply make up for the extra pounds by being sufficiently smart, funny or interesting. But make no mistake, I did feel that my weight was something I needed to make up for. Clothes shopping was a mixed bag because some items would fit fine, some would make me look like an overstuffed sausage casing. In the latter case, whenever something hugged me in all of the wrong places, it was my body's fault for how crappy things looked. Not the clothing manufacturer, not the designer, not a simple case of a bad fit: I was chubby and so it was my fault when clothing didn't look good. Though I paid attention to what I ate and tended to veer towards healthier options, I had a pretty sedentary lifestyle. I would probably only exercise a couple times a week, never in a strenuous manner.

I want to be very clear about something: my experience is not unique. Every girl (and many full-grown women) I've known has body image issues. It's utterly depressing and unhealthy and a great argument for Feminism (not that men don't sometimes have the same issues) that girls are trained to judge their bodies so harshly that it's nearly impossible to escape adolescence without insecurity.

Starting near the end of 2012, I had a health crisis that caused me to rethink everything in my life. I moved from Portland, OR to my hometown of Arlington, VA. I wanted to make sure that allergies weren't making me sick, so I started an elimination diet, removing all gluten, soy, grains of any kind, sugar, dairy, legumes and caffeine from my diet. For all of my hang-wringing and fussing over ingredients, I didn't feel any better. So I made my diet slightly less restrictive, sticking to the tenets of the Paleo diet, which allowed me to re-introduce natural sugars (such as honey and maple syrup), but not much else. My experiment with these diets lasted a little over 3 months. I lost about 40 lbs, but I was still sick.

At the same time, I started going to yoga on a regular basis. My friend Abbi brought me to Tranquil Space, which I came to love. At first, I went a couple times a week. Then, 3-4. Eventually, I started working at the front desk. This summer, I completed Level 1 Teacher Training, a four-day intensive program that gave me the tools I needed to start teaching yoga. Since training, I do some form of yoga almost every every day.

Now I'm paleo-ish. I eat mostly gluten-free but don't freak out about ingredients much (especially when out at restaurants). If someone offers me a gluten & sugar-full cookie, I'll probably take it. But everything I cook for myself at home is soy, dairy & gluten free.

All of this is to say: I didn't always look this way. Looking like this definitely has its benefits: a lot more male interest, clothes fit better (not my old ones, of course!) and I'm more comfortable in my skin. However, I'd argue that the most important benefits of my "yoga body" are the things it can do.

Things like arm balances, where I trust my hands to carry the weight of my whole body:

Bakasana (Crow Pose) with Alli, Washington, DC. Photo by Andrea Lynn Taylor.

Or chaturanga dandasana a pose that every Vinyasa Yoga class does at least 10 times, but I couldn't manage until I'd been practicing for months:

Chaturanga Dandasana with Beth and Alli, Georgetown Alleyway, Washington, DC. Photo by Andrea Lynn Taylor.

Yes, of course I'm happy that I can wear head to toe spandex and walk around in public with confidence. Of course I love seeing pictures of myself and no longer fretting over my lumpy stomach or chubby arms. But if you asked me what the best thing that came of my (continuing) struggle with illness was, it wouldn't be the weight I lost. It is the knowledge that even though my body often fails me, I can always return to yoga and be reminded that I am powerful. 

XO,
KCZ

Hooray for sore muscles!

Two of my friends have told me they're sore from the class I taught yesterday! What a great compliment.

When you do yoga as religiously as I do, you don't often get sore from practicing. It's only the most intense/challenging/push-you-to-your-edge class that can make you remember that muscles sometimes get angry. Someone telling me a class I taught "made them feel super relaxed" is awesome, but I can chalk that up to the magic of yoga itself. Soreness: that's all about the sequence.

My arms and shoulders are still sore from an amazing arm balancing workshop I took with Siobhan at Tranquil Space. It was one of those practices where, about 5 minutes in I knew I was going to be feeling it for days afterwards (in a good way... mostly).

And now I can do this:

Not the prettiest astavakrasana (eight-angle pose) because my shoulders should be even and I can only hold it for a breath or two, but it's a start! 

XO

KCZ