Posts Tagged ‘flagstaff’
Yoga for Skiers and Snowboarders – with Chris Courtney, E-RYT
Prepare to hit the slopes!
Find out how yoga can enhance your skiing or boarding season!
Never done yoga but love to ski or snowboard? No fear – this workshop is for anyone looking for a way to improve their skiing through yoga. The only requirements are curiosity and an open mind.
Interested in finding core strength, body awareness, and balance that will help take your skiing to another level? Tired of dealing with tight hips or sore lower back muscles after a weekend on the slopes? Want to learn how yoga can help prevent skiing-related injuries?
With this 2 hour workshop, you’ll learn how you can use yoga to improve your strength, flexibility, stamina, balance and breathing to improve your skiing and boarding. Whether you want to prevent injury or take your skiing or boarding to the next level, this workshop can help you on the way to achieve your goals!
This workshop consists of three parts:
- Identifying where you need stability and agility – we’ll highlight the key areas of the body and explore how they relate to increasing performance, improving balance and control over your skis/board, building endurance, and preventing injuries.
- Improving stamina, building strength and increasing flexibility – we’ll move through a sequence for overall conditioning and strengthening which addresses the target areas we identified in part one.
- Learn effective pre- and apres- ski sequences to speed recovery time after a day on the slopes.
Taught by yoga teacher, avid skier (Alpine, and Nordic) and mountaineer Chris Courtney, RYT 500
To book this workshop at your studio or ski resort, please contact Chris at kirancourt@gmail.com
I often tell people that I learned more about pranayama (yogic breathing) through suffering from asthma and allergies for years than from anything else.
A story I tell less often is how I learned to find peace and serenity in meditation while under mortar and rocket barrages in Baghdad a few years ago.
In a past life while working a stint at the US Embassy in Baghdad (long story…), I used to be awakened in the morning by an alarm telling us that rockets and mortars were inbound to our little collection of trailer homes behind the embassy along the Euphrates. This usually meant rolling out of bed and onto the floor to get under my armored vest…basically into balasana (child’s pose) with my arms tucked under the vest - to wait and wonder if some shell would come crashing through the tin roof of my trailer and ruin my day.
Sometimes these alarms would go off while I was in the shower or sitting on the toilet. So, my roommate and I made a deal that if either of us was hit while on the can, we’d pull the other off so we wouldn’t go out like Elvis…but I digress.
It was during those mornings (and often late afternoons) while hearing rockets whizzing overhead and hearing the crash of mortars landing nearby that I learned how to find inner peace. Powerless to do anything but crouch and wait (perhaps even to die), I learned to let go and try not to be attached to the outcome of the situation but rather to tuck inside and be one with my own breath. At first it was a way to overcome the fear of hearing the crashes getting closer and closer to me (before they stopped) but later it became a way to access a much deeper level of meditation and get a better glimpse of my true self.
Why is it that it takes such drastic situations to make us truly focus inward and strip away the things which block us from connecting to our true selves? Why did my mind wander so in quiet rooms back home but find such focus in a war zone of all places?
Ever since those experiences in Baghdad, I’ve been able to check out and meditate anywhere. In the middle of a busy airport? No problem! Sitting next to a crying baby? Piece of cake! In a beautiful mountain meadow? Now you’re talking!
Sure, we’d all like to have that serene place to meditate or practice yoga but in an ever-louder, ever-crowded world such places are far harder to come by. Of course, that place within ourselves is always available, provided we remember to look for it.
This article originally appeared in Elephant Journal on June 28th, 2010.
Give up to grace
The ocean takes care
of each wave
Till it gets to shore
You need more help
than you know
-Rumi
It was just over a week ago while driving to attend yoga teacher training with Doug Swenson at Lake Tahoe that I decided it was time to overcome a nagging fear I’d had for years. Neither climbing frozen waterfalls in Switzerland nor having a child soldier in Africa point a machine gun at my chest caused as much fear in me as a simple handstand (adho mukha vrksasana).
Five years ago, I’d crashed from a handstand, dropping my head straight onto a tile floor and leaving me with a mild concussion and a sore neck which lasted for months. Ever since that time, I’d been wary to even kick up against a wall, fearing another drop onto my melon and the ensuing months of pain. I always dreaded a yoga teacher announcing that we were going to do the handstand and did my best to muddle at the wall waiting for everyone to finish so we could move to the next asana (pose).
For some reason, I never found a teacher willing to help me try it again and in one case, encountered a rather dismissive one who remarked (as she turned her back and walked away), “oh, I see you have some fear issues.” So, somewhere between Albuquerque and the Eastern Sierras I figured that if I was going to be a yoga teacher, I needed to overcome this fear and get some part of my handstand mojo back. Upon arrival in South Lake Tahoe, I found myself with an incredibly supportive teacher in Doug Swenson, not to mention my fellow students. So, I figured it was time to give it a go. At first I thought it would take the entire month to get past this barrier of fear but on the second day of training, with the help of my roomate Simon Moseley and a few other fellow students providing me a good bit of lift, I got into a (supported) handstand for the first time in five years.
I got up into it a few more times (against a wall) and my fear of the handstand started to fade as our first week of training came to a close. This got me thinking about fear and how vital it is to have support to help us overcome it. It seems the independent Aquarian in me was slow to realize that sometimes we need help to bridge the mental gap between thinking you can’t do something and believing you can. With the help of a supportive community, we can fill that gap.
It also etched into me a lesson I hope to remember as a yoga teacher, to sense when a student is dealing with fear issues and to provide them the support to help them overcome it, just as my classmates have done for me. And perhaps even more importantly, to apply this same lesson in life every day.
This article originally appeared in Elephant Journal on May 16th, 2010
Almost every day, millions of us wander into a crowded pub where just about everyone we know (and some we’ve connected with but haven’t yet met) are all waiting for a chat. Sometimes its invigorating; sometimes its aggravating, and its often overwhelming. Of course I’m talking about Facebook. And its no small thing these days since if it were a country, Facebook (with over 400 million users), would rank third in population behind China and India.
For some yogis and yoginis, who are striving to be open to the universe with peace and compassion, Facebook can be irresistible. Its like having pen pals all over the world without having to wait for a letter in the mail and the chance to share so many thoughts and ideas can be very enriching.
Like so many people, I was ambivalent at first but, as it is with so many yoga enthusiasts, a strong desire to connect drew me in. Before long, I was re-connecting with people I thought I’d never see again, including relatives as well as old colleagues and classmates. Of course thrown into that mix were ex-girlfriends, bullies, and people who previously wouldn’t give me the time of day but suddenly wanted to “friend” me. How to respond?
Of course this wonderful open world of Facebook is not without a darker side. Some people I know use an alias to avoid being tracked down by an old stalker while most people are careful about the details we share on our info page. I’ve seen a Buddhist friend in Texas shouted down by her family for “not following the way of the lord” and seen people “drop” each other over a disagreement in political views. Last fall, I even had a long-running debate over health care with some conservative cousins in North Carolina but we never let it deteriorate into name-calling or negative feelings about each other.
If anything, Facebook puts our relationship with the world under a magnifying glass and one thing is for sure; whatever baggage you already carry – you bring it with you. How much about ourselves do we share? Who do we open up to? How open are we to other ideas? Do we see the world as full of potential friends or creepy people who will do us harm? Which feelings rule our universe; happiness and joy or fear and insecurity?
A few months ago I wrote about living your yoga in the face of fear and anger but how do you live your yoga on Facebook? How do you take it off the mat and onto your laptop?
When you see the pictures of your friend’s recent trip to Maui, do you feel jealous or are you genuinely happy that they got to have that experience?
Take a look at your own recent posts on your own “wall” – are they boastful, positive, negative, mean, kind, or fun?
How do you respond when a lonely friend or acquaintance is reaching out to you? Do you take the time to respond or do you ignore it and get on with your day?
How do you deal with someone you barely know reaching out to connect with you? What about someone who bullied you or ignored you in the past?
These are questions we all seem to grapple with and how we respond can tell us a lot about ourselves.
Let’s say you accept the “friend request” from someone you hardly know or who used to barely acknowledge your existence. Some people will then write on that person’s wall “thanks for the friend request…” as if to tell the world (in a very fifth grade note-passing kind of way), “hey look everyone, she asked to be my friend!” Instead of feeding the ego, how about just a nice “Hi, I’m glad we’re connected now?”
It seems many yoga people like to connect with each other but not everyone does. As Candice Garrett, a yoga teacher and author in Santa Cruz, CA found out: “I used to request more people…other yoga teachers and authors, until I got a few snarky letters demanding to know who I was, or why I wanted to be their friend.”
Sure, some people are mobbed with many friend requests (or have gone to a fan page) but few reactions are quite as unkind as the “do I know you?” response, especially from another yogi or yogini.
And what about those annoying “I just sent you a Teddy Bear” posts that seem to show up like bad wallpaper? I’m sorry but however well-intentioned, these just don’t seem like a genuine attempt to connect but look more like spam. You can always block these applications and if it gets really bad, you can consider setting up your page so that only you can post to your wall (but others can always respond to what you post).
A big question for many people is, after years of having so many walls between family, friends, work colleagues and others is how the dynamic changes when they’re no longer so compartmentalized? Your relationship with each of these people was once quite unique and if they’re all part of your Facebook posse, how well do they mix?
You may be quite open and accepting but what if one of your relatives decides to tear into something a friend wrote on your wall. Of course this puts us in an awkward spot because the last thing we want is to be forced into is a situation where we must choose sides between friends and/or family (no matter who was “right or wrong” in the situation). As some people have found out, its often their own family members who turn on them for the views they post.
Of course these are great opportunities to work on our peacemaking skills and try to bridge the gap. That said, if this happens too often and it can’t be rectified, perhaps the best way to keep the peace is to have separate accounts so your worlds aren’t so intertwined.
Perhaps most importantly, how do we respond to someone in need? We saw many people on Facebook raising money to support Haiti and Chile in their times of need but what about that lonely friend or acquaintance who just needs someone to chat with?
While I’m not the biggest fan of the chat feature, it does seem to be an amazing way to help someone deal with loneliness and depression or (as I spent over an hour on Friday night) someone with a broken heart. To me, this is social media at its best; opening channels between people when a real connection is what someone needs most.
And its not just those who are lonely and depressed who need us but sometimes it’s a friend facing a challenge who needs that little bit of extra wind at their back. It doesn’t matter whether you’re interviewing for a job, having a baby, or teaching your first yoga class; having that Facebook cheering section behind you sure can’t hurt.
And despite all of the wonderful doors that something like Facebook can open, its perhaps good to remember that outside your door is an entire world of people also looking for a connection, in person. Taking it off the mat and onto Facebook is great, but its even better to take it off the mat and into the rest of the world.
This article was originally published in Elephant Journal on March 9th, 2010
Buy Less, Live More.
Over the past year, we’ve heard more than a few observers state that the current economic downturn may have arrived just in time to save the planet from our excessive consumption. At the same time, it seems something even more powerful may be going on; this downturn could be helping us cleanse our souls.
While I would certainly not want to make light of the hardships faced by millions as they lose their jobs (and health care), there is no doubt about it: we are living in a new age of frugality. It’s a forced frugality, of course, but the result is the same: more people are learning to be happy with less. Gone are the days of packed parking lots at big box stores and throngs of shoppers exiting with big bags of gadgets and new clothes (often bought on credit). We forgot the difference between what we want and what we need—and many now have no choice but to re-learn this difference quickly.
The longer our economic malaise goes on, the more Americans are learning what millions in Namibia, Peru, and India knew already; happiness does not come from acquiring more stuff, and that “retail therapy” is highly overrated. We now see more people spending their Saturdays together in the park, checking out books at the library or planning a nice family dinner at home. We also see more people realizing that you don’t need to own something (like a flower or singing bird) to be enriched by its beauty.
This of course is bad news for advertisers and retailers, many of whose success depends on making you feel that you are missing something if you don’t buy their products. How will they sell to people who no longer feel that they lack much of anything? It’s much harder to convince you to keep up with the Jones’ when the Jones’ are wearing comfortable old jeans and planting carrots in the back yard.
So how can these businesses (which we rely on for food and jobs) still survive?
Simple: by inspiring people rather than making them feel they lack something. Is it any wonder that so many of the businesses thriving in the current economic climate tend to rely on inspiration to get their message across? And that inspiration must be authentic, otherwise we’re still not convinced.
But are frugality and inspiration enough?
My own father was not a yogi, but he certainly observed the yogic restraint (yama) of aparigraha, or non-hoarding and non-selfishness. A child of the Great Depression, he learned early on not to seek happiness from material things and other outside sources, but to find it within himself (in his spiritual tradition). His constant exhortation to us growing up was that “everything you need is right here” (while pointing to our hearts and heads).
He had never read Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, nor its advice that “freedom from wanting unlocks the real purpose of existence”—but he certainly lived it. Today, millions of people seem to be learning the same lesson.
As the US economy began its sharp decline last year, my father feared that many people, after years of seeking happiness through material things, would be unable to cope with the coming hard times (which he had experienced as a boy). So, in the final months of his life while lying in a hospital bed dying of thyroid cancer, he penned one last book titled “Painting The Milkweeds” in the hope that some helpful lessons could be passed on.
Perhaps the most vivid story from the book (and a bedtime story we were often told) was of a Franciscan monk named Brother Aloysius Gilmartin, who embodied the spirit of selfless generosity and non-hoarding.
A prime example of Brother Aloysius’ selflessness happened one freezing Pennsylvania winter during the depths of the Great Depression. Seeing that he did not have anything to keep him warm outside, my grandfather had given Aloysius a new winter coat…and he showed up without it the following day. When asked what happened to the coat Aloysius replied:
“You see I saw an old man sitting on the curb, and he had no coat, so I gave him mine. He needed it more than I did.”
So, now that we are living in similar hard times, we may find we have an easier time looking inward for happiness rather than seeking it through material wealth or hollow achievements. At the same time, with increasing hardship all around us, we have more opportunities to look outward and practice compassion, just as Aloysius did.
What we do with these opportunities may have a lot to do with whether we lose our way again when the “good times” return—or whether we realize that those good times have always been here, provided we make them so for someone else.
This article originally appeared in Elephant Journal in September, 2009.
