How has yin yoga influenced my practice?

I’ve written this in preparation for an advanced yin teacher training I’m doing with Norman Blair in June…

‘Practice’ is an interesting word. For me, it means:

  • moving in this body
  • being in this body
  • living with this mind.

That’s how I’ve structured this piece of writing.

Moving in this body

Yin has undoubtedly had an impact on how I practice ashtanga yoga. Although I pretty much discovered both simultaneously, it’s been more recently that I have considered how one affects your attitude towards the other.

I’ve seen people so focused in their ashtanga practice. They throw absolutely everything at it. It’s an attack or an assault and there’s no ease. I used to be a bit like that but now I try and bring the yin to the yang. I try not the force the asana.

Michel Besnard taught me on my 500 hour training and his favourite phrase is “who cares”. Who cares if you don’t get your head to your shin in paschimotanasana. Who cares if you don’t jump through. A good mantra if ever I heard one.

So I think about how I can create space. I listen inwardly and there’s less striving.

As a result, there’s more connection to breath. It really feels like a moving meditation and I feel more. I certainly notice more. How does my lumbar and glute medius feel in supta kurmasana? Am I really engaging my adductors in navasana? What’s going on with the bandhas?

Moving slowly suits me. Given half the chance, I’d happily lie in bed all morning. I’m a naturally tamasic person. I find it more challenging to gee myself up to practice ashtanga at home. But yin? I’m there in a flash – sprawled out across the living room carpet – I need to be peeled off with a spatula.

Being in this body

I remember being at university one day and walking across campus only to be brought to a standstill by the sight of a huge flock of Canadian geese flying overhead in formation, above the spires of the neo-gothic buildings. The sky was bright blue and they stood out against the grey Yorkshire stone.

I looked at all the other students scurrying around me, anxious to get to their morning lectures on time. No-one else saw this natural beauty. The geese were so peaceful and elegant, quietly making their way to wherever they were heading. The encounter inspired me to create scribbles in my sketchbook.

At that point in my life I’d never even been to a yoga class, didn’t know what yin meant but that act of noticing the little things has always been in me. I was brought up with a father who made me look at the tiny flowers growing on dry stone walls on country walks and I’m pretty good at spotting a typo. I’m all about the details.

But at the same time, I’d say that I’ve lived my life quite detached from noticing the subtleties of this body and what’s going on inside.

In my twenties, I got terrible anxiety. I couldn’t eat in some social situations and I got really stressed about it. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I remember going to see a lady for some cognitive behavioural therapy. She said, “You’re going to do a yoga teacher training? Oh that’ll sort you out!” She was right. It was through yoga that I realised it was tension-related – where do I hold my tension? In my stomach. It made sense why I struggled to eat.

While the process of looking inward can be scary at times, I’ve learnt that it’s so beneficial. Being still in a yin practice facilitates this. You notice the sensations. It’s a practice you can take off the mat and into your everyday life.

I had a run-in with someone not too long ago and there were a few very tense phone conversations where I had to make it clear that I wasn’t a happy bunny. Every time I came off the phone I spent a few breaths noticing the impact on body – the tightening, the holding, the shortening of breath. I wouldn’t have thought to do that before I’d discovered yin or Martin Alyward.

Living with this mind

Yin has allowed me to reconnect with a meditation practice.

Having done my initial teacher training with Sivananda, I was given a mantra and for about six months after coming home from India, I’d religiously get up early, silently chant my mantra for 20 minutes and then get on with my day. And then winter crept in, I got busy at work and the Sanskrit went out of the window.

Ryan Spielman introduced me to the teachings of meditation teacher Martin Alyward and I began doing my yin practice at home listening to his podcasts. So much of his teachings resonated. They applied to a yin practice and to life in general.

I began a sitting practice again and went on a five-day silent retreat to Gaia House with Martin last October. Since then, I’ve made time to sit during the week. For me, it feels right to spend this time noticing my breath – its nuances – and noticing sensations. I notice how distracted my mind is – and that’s ok. An insight meditation practice does exactly that: it provides insight. I notice what is instead of filling my mind with something else like a mantra.

My mind now appreciates the quiet. My boyfriend Rob likes listening to BBC Radio 5 Live and it’s a lot of talking. I struggle to have a conversation with him if it’s on in the background. I like eating in silence and enjoying the taste of food. I like listening to birdsong and watching the squirrels.

Yin has taught me about acceptance – again, the softening around the striving – accepting situations and people as they are, not willing them to be different. Of course, it’s a work in progress.

Martin talks about how we’re so fixated on ‘letting go’ and that it’s an overused phrase in today’s yoga and spiritual industry. He says we should focus instead on ‘unclinging’. I like this. There’s the unclinging and softening in yin poses and then how this translates into the everyday.

I’ve been a cling-on. In the past I think I’ve verged on the control freak end of the spectrum. My organisational skills have been praised in past jobs and I’ve taken pride in being on-the-ball. I’ve tried to find the ideal man that ticked all the boxes. But since practicing yin and finding this softening, I’ve been able to open up – physically and mentally.

I’ve relaxed my tick box exercise and now I’m engaged to be married. Would I have dismissed Rob in the past due to his love of football and for having never stepped foot on a yoga mat? Probably. But now I’m able to see deeper and recognise his wonderful goodness.

Recently I met with a friend of a friend who was considering resigning from her safe, well-paid but boring job to try freelancing. She was full of ‘what ifs’: What if I don’t get any work? What if I’m no good at it? I was talking to a mirror. I was looking at me from a few years’ ago.

I talked to her about fear. I told her that she had good skills and experience. If freelancing doesn’t work for her, she can get a job doing something, anything. Fear can paralyse us. I wouldn’t know this stuff if I hadn’t practiced yin and worked on unclinging.

I could go on talking about the way yin has had an impact on my life, but I’ll stop now. Suffice to say, it’s all about the noticing. I’m much happier as a result. And for this I’m truly grateful.

I’ll leave you with Roger Keyes’ poem about the wonderful Japanese artist, Hokusai:

 

Hokusai says look carefully.

He says pay attention, notice.

He says keep looking, stay curious.

He says there is no end to seeing…

 

He says everything is alive –

Shells, buildings, people, fish

Mountains, trees. Wood is alive.

Water is alive.

 

Everything has its own life.

Everything lives inside us.

He says live with the world inside you…

 

It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

It matters that you notice.

It matters that life lives through you…

 

Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.

 

Hokusai

How has yin yoga influenced your practice? I’d love to know. Feel free to leave your thoughts below.

Singing vs chanting in the wilds of Hertfordshire

Having moved to a new area, I thought I’d put myself out there and try and meet some new people. “Hmmm…. how?” I thought. Well, I’ve been going to a few yoga classes locally but I wanted to meet MORE people. MORE I tell you!

And what do I like doing apart from yoga? Well, I don’t mind singing and I have been known – just on one or two occasions – to spontaneously burst into song when someone says something that reminds me of a song title. And I am rather fond of chanting Sanskrit mantras but that can be rather niche…

“And where did this lead me?” I hear you say. Well, it naturally led me to a taster Rock Choir session in Harpenden. Cue about 60 people – mostly women of  various ages (I was probably at the younger end of the spectrum) – sitting in a school hall on a Monday evening.

I sat with the altos and tried to get my head round where to breathe in Adele’s ‘Someone Like You’. Together we didn’t sound half bad.

Then came ELO’s Mr Blue Sky. I was relieved to hear that they’d been working on it for weeks as I hadn’t the foggiest what was going on. And there were dance moves. Fingers were clicked, salsa steps were attempted, arms were waved and my voice went all over the place. To think that my mum’s a soprano soloist. It was frankly embarrassing.

Abbi the choir leader was amazing. Enthusiastic, pulling everyone together, and incredibly talented. Some people were born performers, strutting their stuff and enunciating like it was going out of fashion. But something was missing. Even if we’d been singing the songs of Julie Andrews, I’m not sure if it was me.

I came home and thought about it. It all felt a bit empty. I love kirtan and chanting mantras. When I chant, I feel like I’m giving my all. My heart feels open and there’s no need to perform. It doesn’t even matter that you might not know the meaning of all the words in Sanskrit. There’s just a great energy about them. When I lead a chant, it’s a magical feeling when an entire room says the line back to you. I love it. Singing ELO and sashaying about just didn’t quite do it for me.

Anyway, you’ve got to try these things. If you fancy Rock Choir, there’s loads of them all over the country. If you fancy spending your Saturday night chanting Sanskrit mantras, the next one at the Yoga Hall in St Albans is 22 June. I know where you’re more likely to find me.

Oh and if you’d like to come to my yoga classes in Wheathampstead and Harpenden, details are on the class schedule page of my new (yes, I said ‘new’) website!

Goswami, it’s your birthday. We gonna party like it’s your birthday.*

This week I had the pleasure of hearing some of the Srimad Bhagavatam being chanted. The Srimad Bhagavatam is an ancient yoga text that talks about the life of Lord Krishna.

Was I in India to hear such a thing? Nope, I was in Putney at the London Sivananda Centre in the company of Sri Venugopal Goswami and his wonderful musicians. Based in India in Vrindavan – the birthplace of Lord Krishna – they visit London every year for seven nights of chanting, chatting and meditation.

Sri Venugopal sits on high in front of about 20 people and expertly chants and interweaves readings from the text.

The tambura drones throughout and we’re transported to a land of Krishna and his gopis. “We chant a little” announces Sri Venugopal and his cross-legged musicians perk up. A slight Indian guy with a cheeky grin and an 80’s mullet begins expertly flicking his wrists and fingers on the tabla drum. The pace quickens and the gruff-looking harmonium player gets lost in the music.

Sri Venugopal closes his eyes and his chanting transports us to Vrindavan. We sit and easily forget our snowy, cold London day. And just as quickly as the chanting started, it stops and he talks.

He talks of Stalin. Though I’m sure this is his own addition and not a Srimad Bhagavatam original…

He talks of devotion and the heart. He talks of karma yoga and selfless actions: one man checks up on his neighbour as he hadn’t seen him for a month and was concerned. “Why would you just be coming to say hello?” asked the neighbour suspiciously. Sri Venugopal says how sad it is that we now live in a time when people think that there must be an ulterior motive. You can’t just do something to be kind.

He talks of the ego: imagine a thick block of ice (very easy to imagine at the moment) and a small candle sitting alongside. No matter how small the flame, gradually the ice will melt. The ice is our ego and the flame is chanting, meditation and yoga. Little by little these teachings reduce our ego. How good is that.

I was surrounded by familiar faces and some unexpected ones too. It was a lovely night and I look forward to their return.
*Title courtesy of that famous yogi, 50 Cent and his song, ‘In da club‘. Yes, I can do pop culture too.

How yoga helped me scale a 65ft/20m yacht mast

It’s been a delightful (or dare I say ‘jubilant’) Jubilee holiday here in London. There’s been such a feeling of positivity and it’s great to see Union Jacks dotted all over the place.

Hoisting the Jubilee bunting
Moments before the bunting disaster

I, however, was not in London over the actual weekend. I was sailing in Sardinia but the Queen’s Jubilee didn’t escape us. Oh no, we dutifully hoisted our Union Jack bunting but everything didn’t go according to plan. The bunting snapped and our vital halyard (aka bit of rope) got stuck at the top of the mast.

Skipper cursed and we wondered how we were going to get it down. “I’m not going up there” and “I’m petrified of heights” rung out amongst the crew. Skip himself said that he’d only ever managed to get half way up. I said rather quietly that I was willing to give it a go. Heads whipped round and mouths gawped open.  “Are you sure, Clare?” they said. “Yeah, why not. I’ll see how far I get,” I replied.

Before I knew it I was strapped into the bosun’s chair (read: little seat and harness) and was armed with instructions and Skip’s trusty Leatherman. I readied myself at the bottom of the mast by closing my eyes and taking several deep yogic breaths. The line became taught, the bosun’s chair took the strain, I was on my tippy toes and then I was swinging up on my way.

Sad broken bunting

I mentally repeated my mantra in order to steady my mind and I kept looking up, maneuvering myself around the various cables, aerials and bits and bobs coming out from the main mast. Fortunately we were in a marina so the sea was calm but the higher I got, the more I felt the sway and my knees hit the hard mast a few times.

About half way up, the winching stopped for a few moments and I looked down. Thoughts of “oh my god, oh my god, what if ‘x’ happened, what if ‘y’ happened” flooded into my head and I banished them by chanting my mantra out loud. I chanted like there was no tomorrow. After a while, I then moved on to repeating peace mantras:

Om namo narayanaya daso ham tava kesava
Om dum durgayai namah
Om hrim maha laksymai namah

The chanting regulated my breathing and every other thought was banished from my mind. I found out afterwards that my friend on deck had said, “Erm, I think she’s chanting.” I was shouting mantras at the top of my lungs.

Before I knew it, I had reached the top and it was bliss. Ananda through and through. It was peaceful, serene and the views were to die for. I set the bunting free and was very grateful to have my camera on me so I can share the views with you now.

You can just make out the waving crew on deck
The best view in the house

I was very happy to make it back down to terra firma (or at least ‘boat deck’) in one piece and I honestly think that if I didn’t have my mantras i would have chickened out. The power they have to steady your mind is amazing. In everyday life, if I have negative or repetitive thoughts going round in my head, I repeat my mantra. Although Sanskrit mantras are meant to contain more energy, you could try repeating something like ‘let go’ or just a simple ‘om’ in time with your breath. It can be so meditative.

So what’s the message of this post? Surely it’s that mantra chanting can help you reach new heights.

Has yoga ever led you to do something unexpected? Has yoga helped you achieve something? Feel free to share below!