Month: June 2010

feeding my soul

by L. Valdez Karl

Over the weekend I went to a talk on yoga psychology by Uma Krishnamurthy. She is a psychiatrist, a yogi, and an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer. One of my favorite things that she said was not about yoga but about dance: if you are angry, dance. To help dissolve your ego, direct your anger to God, and dance. Then you will forget what you are angry about.

Uma quoted from the Gita, the Vedas, and the Yoga Sutras, from Ramakrishna and Aurobindo and Krishnamurthi. Her lecture on how yoga and the ancient teachings teach us about the true purpose of yoga which is personal transformation was so inspiring to me, yet I left her talk feeling a bit depressed.

Her talk made me feel as if I were in India again listening to my teachers at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram. Yet, I left depressed because I feel sometimes that I am the lone voice in the wilderness where I live insofar as getting the personal transformation message out there. I left with the feeling that I don’t belong here, that my ideas on yoga are too “out there.” The feeling that I don’t belong here is so overwhelming at times that it tears at my heart and soul. But that feeling also makes me grateful for my private students who come to my house because they are so dedicated to change and to their practice.

One of my former private students, a business entrepreneur, once told me that it’s hell being a pioneer, that it’s much easier being a follower because the pioneer is the one who gets the arrows shot up her ass. Take that advice for what it’s worth. I will write more later about Uma Krishnamurthy’s lecture.

I told my husband when I got home that the truth that is held in the ancient teachings that Uma spoke about was the reason I travel to India — it nourishes me like no other place does and I can’t explain it. This post comes the closest to an explanation.

I think I will put on some music and dance.

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yoga whores* for the corporate dollar

by L. Valdez Karl

Oh my.

“Yoga” and “whore” in the same sentence. That’s a jolt to the manomayi kosha.

Sometimes strong language is needed to get people to sit up and take notice. What can I say? When I was a young hippie chick I looked up to strong-talking women like Angela Davis and Germaine Greer.

No, I’m not dissing any working girls. In fact, I have a lot more respect for a woman who has to make her living on the street than I do for some of the *corporate* yoga antics out there right now. I’m using this definition of “whore”: A *person* considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.

To clarify, be advised (and that language comes from my working for lawyers for 20 years) that I am writing about CORPORATIONS, NOT about any specific yoga person who is a spokesperson/model for a yoga mat company, yoga clothes, etc. I would not mind being in an ad for the eco-mat that I use because I love the brand (and no, it is not Manduka.) For your ** reference, see the U.S. Supreme Court’s “corporate personhood” debate.

My phrasing is comparable to the way one of my city representatives used it when she said that my town was whoring itself for the local sales tax revenue if the powers that be allowed Walmart (one of the 10 worst companies on the planet according to betterworldshopper.org) to build next to a marsh/bird sanctuary. Long story short: they didn’t. A citizens’ group that I started stopped them from doing that.

A grass roots group. I made my own flyers and walked door to door. No corporate sponsors. Power to the people.

Roseanne is on fire with her post on the rained out “yoga gathering” in New York City. She says:

“I wonder, do we have to do this dance? We all know it’s a dance. You really can’t convince me that, other then sponsoring an event with a guaranteed captive audience of 10,000, do these companies embody yogic values? JetBlue would like to co-opt the openness and transparency associated with yoga by guaranteeing “no blackout dates, no seat restrictions” on its frequent-flier program. It’s nice of adidas to sponsor a high-profile yoga teacher, offer free yoga classes around the world and develop a line of sustainable yoga wear ~ but its other business practices include endorsing the slaughter of kangaroos (an endangered species) in Australia and sweatshops in Asia. Can we separate these actions from its endorsement of yoga?”

Max Strom posted this response on his Facebook page about it:

“…exciting that 9000 people gathered in Central Park to practice yoga and I have been waiting for an event like this for some time. But it my opinion the event was sadly squandered. All the media was there, CNN, the NY Times, everybody – the cameras were pointing. For the first time in history the world put the …microphone at the mouth of the larger yoga community in America. But what was the message given? We are celebrating the Solstice. We want more people to practice yoga. That’s it? We have nothing more to say to the world but that in 2010? With the oil gusher reminding us all that solar power is desperately needed, 9000 people doing salutations to the sun could have brought the world an unforgettable visual and call to invest in a nonpolluting technology. And with hurricane season kicking up in the Gulf, we could have bought attention back to the people of Haiti. Let us come together again in mass. Soon. But next time let’s show what we stand for. And yes we can do it without corporate sponsors. Martin Luther King did.”

Instead, everyone walked away with swag bags.

I loved Max’s last two sentences, especially since I watched Martin Luther King march through my Chicago neighborhood in the late ’60s. I also saw a crazy throw a brick at Dr. King’s head and saw him stumble and then march on. I became politicized, radically, at an early age.

YogaDork asks whether we want to smell like Eat Pray Love….

““Pray” journeys to India’s sultry incense and spice history with jasmine, pink pepper, patchouli, amber, juniper berry, cardamom, and musk for a woodsy scent laced in exoticism.”

…and alerting the advertisers’ new dream, the yoga moms, that they should get ready to take out their wallets for the Home Shopping Network:

“Well, thank goodness for the candle set. What if you want smell like exotic praying patchouli, but want the room to emit love and mangoes??”

Funny.

I kinda remember India smelling a bit differently….

Yeah, something stinks. And it’s not the new Eat Pray Love perfume.

Of course corporate sponsorship is the way of the modern world. Sports teams started it a long time ago. People even get corporate names tattooed on their foreheads (hey, I like tats but you couldn’t pay me enough) and name their kid after their favorite soda or car.

Just because it’s the way it is nowadays, does that make it “good”? Really?

Have we really become that numb that no one asks the question anymore, “when is enough, enough?”

 

when yoga bloggers meet

by L. Valdez Karl

Another successful yin-yang yoga workshop at the Chicago Yoga Center yesterday made even more special by finally meeting two cyber-yogis from the yoga blogosphere….Bob and Brooks. Always good to finally put faces to the online voices!

Yoga obviously makes us happy!

A big thanks to Brooks and Bob for your support of the yin-yang yoga dharma.

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DANA

by L. Valdez Karl

Buddhists believe that giving without seeking anything in return leads to greater spiritual wealth. Dana is a concept in Buddhism that means generosity or giving. It is also the practice of cultivating generosity. Ultimately, the practice culminates in one of the perfections (pāramitā): the perfection of giving. It is characterized by unattached and unconditional generosity, giving and letting go.

Many Buddhist retreats operate on the concept of dana. My yoga and meditation training at Spirit Rock operated on a sliding scale fee basis and on the last day you also gave what you could afford to pay to all the teachers and staff.

I was inspired to write after reading Blisschick’s post on her installation of a donation button on her blog. Like Blisschick, I don’t have ads on this blog and also like her, I have written many words over five years — this is my 400th post! — and very much appreciate the relationships I have developed because of this blog.

More than a few people have written to me over the years about how inspired they were by my words (“I thought I was the only one to feel this way!”) or how I have helped their yoga practice in some way (for example, my many posts on yin yoga.) This blog is a global teaching tool just as much as my yoga classes are locally.

An old friend told me just the other day that my knowledge is valuable and she suggested that I write a book. She thought it would be shame if I did not put my unique yoga philosophy, my teachings, down in a book because, she said, “You are special, what you have done is special, and once you are gone, who will carry on your teachings? They will be lost.”

My friend wrote a book containing her family recipes because she wanted to share her knowledge, she thought it valuable enough. More importantly, she valued herself enough to do that.

Her words reminded me of what the teachers told us at KYM: that we should spread our knowledge, because if we did not, we would be nothing more than thieves, taking but not giving.

So, like Blisschick, my time and energy and words and experiences are worth something, and I have had a Paypal donation button on the right side for some some time now. If some bloggers can ask their readers to help pay for their yoga teacher training, then I will also graciously accept and appreciate your dana, gratitude, and love offerings. A heartfelt “thank you” goes out to the readers who have donated a few rupees over the years! Of course, readers are free to ignore the donation button, it’s your choice.

But if you have benefited in some way or learned anything from this blog in five years, then consider what that knowledge — indeed, the wisdom of an ageless hippie chick Buddhist yogini — has been worth to you.

Metta to all my readers!

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the truth of my unknowing

by L. Valdez Karl

more on this later….

“This aliveness is nothing being everything. It’s just life happening. It’s not happening to anyone. There’s a whole set of experiences happening here and they’re happening in emptiness … they’re happening in free fall. They’re just what’s happening. All there is is life. All there is is beingness. There isn’t anyone that ever has or does not have it. There’s nobody that has life and somebody else doesn’t have life. There just is life being life.

This message is so simple it totally confounds the mind. This message is too simple. Already your mind’s saying, “Yes, but come on … what about the levels of enlightenment and what about my emotional blocks, and what about my chakras, they’re not all fully open? What about my stillness – I’m not really still yet, and what about my ego? Somebody told me I still have an ego … it’s a bit reduced but it’s still there.”

But all of that, all of those ideas are adopted lessons about how it should be. The ego is what’s happening. The ego is just being ego. Thinking is just being thinking. There is only being. There is just being. There’s nothing else. There’s nobody that’s running that. There’s no destiny, there’s no God, there’s no plan, there’s no script, there’s nowhere to go because there is only timeless being. Being is totally whole just being. And it is alive and fleshy and sexy and juicy and immediately this; it’s not some concept about ‘there’s no-one here’. It’s not some concept about ‘there’s nowhere to go’. It is the aliveness that’s in that body right now. There is pure beingness, pure aliveness. That’s it. End of story.

Really it is simply that.”

(Tony Parsons)

There is nowhere to get to because we are already here.

There is no enlightenment because we are already enlightened — it is merely covered up with as much muck as is flowing into the Gulf of Mexico right now. Our searching for it is like trying to swim in quicksand.

We are no different from the rishis of ancient India, only we have forgotten what we are, they did not.

It really IS so simple, but none of it is easy.

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ongoing saga: yoga ink!

by L. Valdez Karl

You can read about the start of this new ink here.

Tattoos are like India — ya either love ’em or hate ’em, I don’t think there is any in-between. While Serena was setting up yesterday she told me about a dreamcatcher she was going to tattoo on the back of a guy’s head (obviously he’s bald.) The tattoo was also going to include a set of antlers coming up onto his scalp that would “hold” the spider web he already has. Hey, everyone needs a pair of antlers on their head, right?

Today I went for the second sitting and for some crazy reason I thought it would be finished today. I did not realize how complicated it is! Here it is, minutes after I got off the table, in all its raw glory — click on pic for a better view:

The staminal column (the official name for the inside of a hibiscus flower instead of having stamens, pistels, or filaments) is yellow but probably does not look like it because of the fresh blood. Also, the lotus petals inside the yantra are not as red as they appear, they are more pinkish but again, because of the blood the initial color will be different. More information that you want to know, I’m sure!

Of course, now the butterfly needs freshening up. Never ending…just like plastic surgery or so I hear!

(Tattoos by Serena)

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feel good friday

by L. Valdez Karl

It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to listen to Macy Gray. Up until very recently her music reminded me of an extremely painful time I went through a few years ago, an incident that manifested PTSD. So I look at my posting of her new video as a small victory. And I liked the title.

I taught my favorite class last night, my karma yoga at a domestic violence shelter. Despite what y’all read here about yoga economics, who signs up for workshops, yoga studio owners, whatever, it’s not all about that. I love the ladies there because they are my teachers AND they understand intuitively the true purpose of yoga and meditation. They are grateful and beautiful and amazing and we empower each other.

And…my gardens rock!

This photo is from last year. I added new prayer flags in the gardens and seeing them outside my kitchen window every morning makes me smile intensely and immensely. It’s going to be hot and steamy today and I’ll still be out there digging in the dirt because life is too short.

As for everything else….what I say, what I write, my life, my path, I can only be true to myself. This blog is a combination of the sacred and the profane just like I am. If that makes someone uncomfortable, oh well. Go read Eat Pray Love instead.

From a non-conformist business newsletter I get:

“…if what you’re doing is truly innovative, not everyone will understand in the beginning, and maybe you should just go for it. Lately I’ve been thinking about what Henry Ford said: ‘If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ”faster horses.””

From a student:

“While not everyone is ready for you, those that are will garner great experiences and make important adjustments in their life because of you and your impact.”

Yeah, I need these reminders.

Beauty in the world, yo.

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a high level of confusement

by L. Valdez Karl

The warehouse manager at my husband’s company once told The Hubs that he (the manager) had a high level of confusement. 😉 🙂

I’m throwing the question out there: as a yoga student, do you get confused when you experience a style of yoga you are not familiar with? Or do you just go with flow and if it resonates with you that’s fine, and if not, that’s fine too?

The reason I ask is that a yoga studio owner gave me that reason as to why he did not feel comfortable with me doing a workshop. He thought his students would get “confused.”

HUH?

As a teacher getting my name out there in my area, I send a lot of emails to studios asking if they would like to offer one of my workshops. It’s a simple, standard email introduction of myself, giving them my website link, stating what I can offer, giving them a link to news articles about me, things like that. It’s a standard business introduction. A yoga teacher friend told me that when she took a “business of yoga” workshop, the presenter said that you have to get your name in front of people at least 7 times before they connect with you. Sometimes yoga studio owners tell me “let’s do it!”, but for the most part I never hear from them. Not even a “thanks, but no thanks” response. As my husband the Big Shot Corporate Guy has told me, a lot of small business owners have really crappy personal business skills. They may know what they’re doing in their business, but as for people skills, forget it.

This week I heard from one local studio owner who said that he would feel more comfortable if I spent time at his studio getting to know his style and “methods” so that I could “get an understanding of where the students are coming from.” Then he said, “I don’t mind if students seek out other styles on there own, but if I’m going to offer it to them [workshops], I feel it is my responsibility to offer programing that keeps into alignment [sic] with the other offerings so as to not confuse the students.”

HUH?

Now I have a high level of confusement.

The website states that the studio is an “intimate studio that creates a safe environment for exploration into the yogic arts.” OK, sounds good to me, which is why I emailed the owner. I happen to know that the owner is heavily Iyengar influenced because a long time ago one of my former students also practiced with this teacher. The studio is not specifically an Iyengar yoga studio and the classes are advertised as simply being yoga classes, not Iyengar yoga classes.

I was amused by the owner’s email. I must say that this was the first time anyone ever told me that I should spend time at their studio getting to know their style and methods. From the class descriptions on the website, I don’t understand how the owner would think that what I do is so wildly different from his offerings. Obviously I am not going to send my workshop proposals to name-branded studios that only offer Bikram or Anusara yoga or to strict Iyengar yoga studios!

In my response to him I said (tongue in cheek) that I think I know a little bit about classical yoga and therapeutic yoga since I study at Desikachar’s school every year. I said that I am certainly familiar with Iyengar yoga and while it is not a style I have studied in depth, I’ve attended many Iyengar yoga classes over the years. My own teacher in Chicago studied at an Iyengar Institute and also with Pattabhi Jois. If he had taken the time to read my website (and from his response my gut tells me that he did not — or maybe he did and he was confused!), he would have seen that I’ve been around the yoga block more than a few times.

I told him that to me, yoga is yoga, and it all comes from the same source which in this modern yoga era is Sri Krishnamacharya. I said that this was the first time I had heard a studio owner say that students might get “confused” if they experience a style of yoga that is different from what they are used to doing. Wouldn’t taking my workshop be their choice anyway? If they are curious they will take it, if not, they will pass on it.

I asked him to explain why he thought his students would be confused because I was honestly perplexed by his statement.

In any event, I said that the testimonials from my students speak for themselves on my website, so if he would like to offer his students the gift of another style of yoga that may further them along their path, to contact me in the future.

I will let you know his response.

If it’s not too confusing.

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where’s the money?

by L. Valdez Karl

YogaDork blogged that Lulu-NO THICK GIRLS ALLOWED-lemon had their best ever financial quarter. The company “plans to open 30 new showrooms and up to 15 new stores this year” Lulu-NO FAT BOTTOM GIRLS HERE-lemon said that “net revenues for the quarter ended May 2 were $138.3 million…” and “ended the quarter with $173.6 million in cash and cash equivalents compared with $59.3 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2009.”

That’s a lot of clothes. That’s some serious coin.

Yoga Journal has always told us that there are millions of yoga practitioners in the United States spending millions of dollars on yoga paraphernalia, teacher trainings, you name it. Speaking only about teacher trainings, we all know that they can start around $2,000 (that’s an inexpensive one) and go well beyond $10,000. Sarah Powers started the Insight Yoga Institute and while the training sounds absolutely wonderful, it costs approximately $15,000.00 to complete.

Sarah, along with other teachers, also started the philanthropic Metta Journeys which travels to Rwanda and benefits Women for Women International. The Rwanda trip costs $5,745 with a $1,000 donation to Women for Women International. The cost does not include airfare and depending on where you live in the United States it could cost you $2,000 to fly to Africa.

Of course we have all seen the ads in yoga magazines for all types of yoga retreats taught by people you’ve never heard of and you can google “yoga retreats” and find literally hundreds all over the world. My teacher in Chicago is offering a yoga vacation in Italy costing $1,340-$1,880; a 10 day yoga vacation to Peru costing $3,140-$3,950; and his 19th yoga vacation in Mexico for $1,700-$2,800.00. None of his trips include airfare and as far as I know, he has never had to cancel a trip due to a lack of students.

(And yes I know I have just given everyone free advertising; would that I get the same from someone for my yoga endeavors.)

My question is: where’s the money?

In other words, who is going on all these trips to all these places for yoga?

The reason I ask is that I have an opportunity to teach in Bali for 10 days, two classes a day. If only 6 people came I would get my lodging and airfare paid for. If 7+ people came I would get paid a certain amount per person. It’s a legitimate offer from a reputable person and it sounds totally sweet, doesn’t it?

So why am I not foaming at the mouth with delight?

Because the last time I taught overseas not one person from the United States signed up for what I offered.

You may remember my Africa trip, my yin-yang yoga weekend with a seva component:

“The cost of the retreat was $1,108.00 and I was taking $108 from each westerner for the Seva Foundation. It was hoped that the founders of the clinic, Dr. Paul Courtright and Dr. Susan Lewallen, would be able to give us a tour of the facility. I thought it was a win-win situation for everyone involved…yoga + meditation + buddhadharma + seva under the African sky.

But no one signed up.

At least no one from the West. I sent my announcement to over 100 people around the United States, advertised it on Facebook and Twitter, and put an ad in a Chicagoland yoga magazine that has a circulation of over 20,000. The Seva Foundation put an announcement on their website’s home page. But not one person showed any interest in spite of the charitable component of the retreat.”

That’s why I am not jumping for joy at this latest offer for me to teach overseas. My Africa weekend was not that expensive relatively speaking because it included everything: yoga plus lodging and food and I told people where to get discounted flights to Tanzania.

The Bali retreat organizer has a client database of over 1,000 people but I hesitate to spend any money on advertising (i.e., another $500 ad in the local yoga magazine) because frankly, what happened last time (or should I say did not happen) felt like a kick in the teeth (and this is the first time I’m saying it out loud.) I advertised to literally over 20,000 people via print ad, my business newsletter, and of course social networking, but zilch. I can understand no one wanting to fly to Africa. What I don’t get is not one person expressing one iota of interest.

I believe that even in a bad economy there are people with disposable income. They’re spending it on $100 yoga pants. Obviously. Just ask Lulu.

I understand how someone with children can’t take off for 10 days, but I also know people (including teachers) who can’t commit to a weekend of yoga in their own backyard. For the most part, people who do yoga (and this includes teachers) tell me that any type of yoga trip is too expensive for them even in the United States. “It’s the economy,” stupid.

Maybe the lack of response to my thing was because I live in the Midwest, not the trendiest part of the country even if it is Chicago. Maybe it’s because I don’t do the fancy arm balances or kick someone’s yoga butt and that’s what people want. Maybe I really don’t have anything to offer.

So I ask again: where all the yoga peeps with money that I keep hearing about? Who is going on all these retreats?

Someone is because I see photos of lots of smiling faces at Kripalu or Omega or Esalen or Land of the Medicine Buddha or (fill in the blank.) I don’t see a dearth of people here.

Where’s the yoga money?

where the ordinary meets the extraordinary

by L. Valdez Karl

My regular readers know that I attended the Kumbh Mela in Hardiwar in February for 9 days. I bathed in the Ganges on Mahashivaratri. While I was not at the Mela towards the end in March and April when there were millions more people than in February, I certainly don’t feel as if I missed anything. I was there on a very auspicious day and it was wondrous and indeed, extraordinary. I hope that my karma is such that I can return to the Maha Kumbh in Haridwar 12 years from now. Who knows? I would be almost 70, hari om….

Baba Rampuri shared this video with me. It shows the initiations of a “blue-eyed” yogi and a yogini.

Rampuri’s book Autobiography of a Sadhu has been republished, and I read it in 2005 when it came out under the title Baba: Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Yogi. I found it a fascinating account of the naga baba life from a western perspective.

In this video the initiation is being done in the naga babas’ camp. I walked through the camp twice during the Mela and was blessed by this sadhu:

He is an Urdhabahu Sadhu, a sadhu who keeps an arm up until it atrophies, the physical manifestation of tapas and bhakti. Most of the men and women in the camps are tantric yogis.

Where the ordinary world meets the extraordinary world…..

after bathing in the the Ganges

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