Pain: Battle or Breathe

I have been working with an injured shoulder for months now - my left, behind the shoulder blade, shooting pains up into my neck. Pain is not unusual in my yoga practice, though that sounds terrible to admit... but I have had degenerative discs since I was thirteen, from a car accident my family was in. It is this accident that really brought me to body awareness and yoga in the first place, though I did not like it at the time and could not understand what it was doing to help me. I felt that instead it was making me focus on my injury when I just wanted to move on from it. In fact, when people ask how I discovered yoga I often forget that it was ever part of my recovery therapy. My first thought is often of a class I was dragged to during college because that is where I had my eureka, oh-this-is-yoga, moment.

We store tension in the body. We hold on to accidents or stress or memories we are still working through. This is not always a conscious act, so we blame the injury for the pain, when really, it is tension caused by something completely different and perhaps not the injury at all. In this case, I really did hurt my shoulder, but I am also sure that there is a lot more going on there. Through this particular pain, I have been going through stages of rest (oh I am going to take it easy in class today, my shoulder...) vs practicing harder (maybe I can just work through the knots). Of course neither has worked. I was pushing too hard and true change, in my personal experience, never occurs by force.

Last week, Jenny Gammello (my teacher, friend, and Thai massage master) worked on my shoulder. She helped me stretch in ways my yoga practice could not achieve and encouraged me to just let go. She got me to surrender the weight of my arm into her hands, so that she could do the work and help me find ease. It may seems simple but letting go, even just the weight of your own arm, is tricky to do. Eventually she got me to give and together we started to work out the knots.

I did not push. I breathed. At one point the position Jenny held my shoulder in, and the breath I sent to it, created such a force that my muscle started to spasm and had no choice but to let go of the tension it was carrying. Jenny told me that I did that work, that I released it all on my own. I laughed and without really thinking said, "It was a battle or breathe moment."  Meaning, I could either fight surrendering to the stretch because it was uncomfortable or just take a deep breath and give in to the experience. Give in. Let go. Breathe. Experience. I have written about all these things before. But sometimes it takes a physical experience to make a concept a reality. Jai.

Ready, Set, Go! (Teach)

Last Monday I did something crazy. I jumped in and subbed a class - and not one of the donation classes where students are aware I am still a new teacher - a 'real' class. In fact, my Teacher Training Director Jenny's class! It was not really on purpose - this was not a scheduled situation. But it was certainly one of those times to just jump (don't look down it will be fine) and then pray your parachute opens.

There is a scene in the Wizard of Oz that goes like this...

Cowardly Lion: All right, I'll go in there for Dorothy. Wicked Witch or no Wicked Witch, guards or no guards, I'll tear them apart. I may not come out alive, but I'm going in there. There's only one thing I want you fellows to do. 
Tin Woodsman, Scarecrow: What's that? 
Cowardly Lion: Talk me out of it! 

This pretty much sums up how I felt. Here's what happened...

I was sitting at my desk at the York Ave studio, signing in the 4:35pm class, and keeping an eye out for the scheduled sub. I was not worried; this is a reliable, wonderful teacher we're talking about here. But then ten minutes before class I started to worry... I call... no answer. Still thinking she will walk in at any moment. (But of course things happen and do not always run as smoothly as we would like.) So I start to call other local teachers... no answer. I am dialing and leaving messages about as quickly as is humanly possible trying to find a teacher for this class when suddenly it dawns on me - I could just teach it. Then thought, wait, can I teach it? And the battle of courage vs fear began.

I called our general manager who assured me that I should indeed jump in and just do it. At this point it is about three minutes after the regular class start time. I walked into the room and thanked everyone for their patience, explained that their sub was no longer available and that I would be their teacher today... I just had to lock up and grab pants. I did this fairly calmly. Then exited the room, ran to the back to pull yoga pants from the boutique, changed quickly, ran back to the front to lock the door, dropping my skirt and shoes and the sales tag from pants I did not know the size of at/around the front desk (yes, my coworker who came in after me had a moment of pondering my disappearance via rapture rising) and then one, two, three, jump.




The class itself is a bit of a blur. I started by putting everyone in child's pose and asking them to let the first chaotic five minutes of their class go. Saying that sometimes this is our yoga. (Secretly hoping that they wouldn't still be upset by the time the class was over. And giving myself a moment to realize that this was my yoga today too.) I had one fellow trainee in class - right up front near me - she was my rock! All through Sun Salutations I kept looking at Susan and thinking 'it's fine, it's just like training.' My hands were shaking, my ipod was on its last bar of battery, etc...  but somehow words were still coming out of my mouth. By the time I got to Surya B I knew that I could do it.

After a few deep breaths (mostly mine) we started on my sequence. As I began to focus, everyone became students instead of seventeen clients I was afraid of displeasing. (Manager brain off - teacher brain on.) Once this happened, I was able to enjoy teaching such a fabulous group of people. I even threw in a few poses or instructions that were particularly Jenny. Honestly, it could not have been a better class to jump into last minute. This was my teacher's class - I know her, the class, and am teaching because of her.  Afterward I felt honored to have been there and really like it might have been meant to be. Heck, I was even wearing a Batman T-shirt for the occasion. (Thank you laundry day.)

It is not easy to face our fears, to have courage or jump in. But sometimes life pushes us to do just that. The universe is not out to get us - instead, I believe, it is looking to show us what we are made of.

Jenny Gammello's Yogini

Recently I had the honor of working with one of my amazing teachers - Jenny Gammello - on her fabulous project Yogini. Jenny, and producer Matt Jared, are making yoga accessible to all via these yoga tutorial videos.

Each Yogini episode takes you through a ten minute series with detailed instructions and three lovely yoginis to guide you. What's really lovely and original about these episodes, is that they show variety in the poses - unlike many yoga videos that often demo the peak of each pose without the krama or steps along the way. With Yogini Jenny Gammello successfully shows that yoga is for everyone.

Check out Episode Three starring Erin Fogel and me as the lovely assistant yoginis. (Erin will also be teaching donation classes at New York Yoga soon - don't miss out!) For more great yoga sequences to practice at home or sneak at work ;) check out the video section of Jenny's website.