Cultivating Heaven in 2011

Hiking Beaver Ridge in Knoxville, TN


This last week of the old year has been a revisiting of the old, while developing a greater appreciation for the new yoga-fied lifestyle we've cultivated in the last couple of years. We've been visiting family and old friends in Tennessee, having a holiday Southern style, consisting of food, food, & some more food! We've had a grand 'ole time and send out loads of gratitude to everyone who's showered us with Southern hospitality. Yet, we've also become pretty homesick for our home base in Maui. We're definitely ready to shed the sweaters & get back to our yoga-fied lifestyle of sun, sand, ocean, gardening, and yoga-ing!

In the meantime, we've got just a couple of days left to live it up in Tennessee. We've had a lot of fun sharing some yoga tips with my family, curious to know more about yoga & how they can use it in everyday life. We've worked with my mother on rehabbing her broken wrist, my dad and uncle on back strengthening and poses for digestion, and my grandmother on poses for general health maintenance. I'll explain more about that in the next post. I've been pleasantly surprised at the interest expressed in yoga around here, as this was the birthplace of my yoga path. It's nice to see the seeds of yoga developing here!



108 beans for 108 salutations

 On this eve of 2011, we also kept alive our tradition of moving through 108 sun salutations to welcome the New Year. If you ask enough people, you'll hear 108 different answers about the significance of 108 sun salutations, ranging from Buddhist and Hindu traditions to numerology to astrology. For me, I like to honor the traditions of yoga that my teachers have taught me. It's also a great way to share in the sangha of modern yogis, with celebratory sessions of 108 salutations being widespread. I think the most intriguing symbolic meaning I've heard recently came from an article by Cora Wen:


For your 2011!



1=God or Highest Truth

0=Emptiness or wholeness 

8=Infinity.

To keep track of our sun salutations, we use 108 beans moved from one bowl to another with each completed cycle. As we practiced our salutations, I just happened to be lined up directly in front of a placard on the wall that simply said: Love, Prosperity, Happiness, Good Luck, Longevity. These were beautiful aspects upon which to meditate during our practice. They are principles I intend to cultivate for our heaven in 2011, & we wish a bounty of them for all of you as well.

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou & Namaste!

Anahatasana in San Francisco

With nearly as much driving time as hours to spend in the city, we made it San Francisco! Fortunately, we were able to squeeze in a yoga class, too. Bend Yoga, the studio I used to call home when I lived in the City by the Bay, offers a candlight restorative class with massage on Sunday evenings. We thoroughly enjoyed the class, and only wished that it had been 4 or 5 hours longer!

With a grand total of 26 hours in the car roundtrip and a bit of dis-ease to top it off, we also learned quite a lot about car yoga. Perhaps the most fundamental element in the car is the seat. The fine details of a properly aligned seat are as important to a comfortable road trip as strong and balanced feet are to tadasana. This fine-tuned seat requires careful attention that the weight of the body rests directly on the sit bones, distributed evenly from right to left and front to back. Sit tall, finding as much extension through the spine as possible. This stable foundation facilitates extended periods of wakeful meditation and pranayama like ujjayi, kapalabhati, agni sara, and nadi shodhana. It also provides a solid base for marma point exercises that keep the body flexible and energy flowing. Simple exercises involve circling the neck around the spine, and taking gentle circles through the shoulders, wrists, and ankles.

Furthermore, it's important to remember to take rest breaks at regular intervals, and use that opportunity to stretch out those cramped muscles. Use the structures around for support and props, like Scott did for padangusthasana, at left. The bottom line is, whatever the travel situation we find ourselves in, creativity is the driving force behind integrating yoga class, practice, and life.

Next stop for the ICYoga train is Knoxville, TN. The pace of our travels will slow down to a more manageable beast for the next 10 days, so we hope to cultivate even more Yoga on the Go while there. If you have ideas for hot yoga spots in Tennessee, send them to us. We'd love to keep spreading the love!

NAMASTE!

Branching Out

A few days ago, the Yoga-fy tip of the day was, "branch out." That is just what we're doing with Yoga on the Go. This week we were in Encinitas, CA, which is something of a yoga mecca on the West Coast. While there, we were fortunate enough to squeeze in some visits to local yoga sites between meals with family and friends.

First, we paid a visit to the meditation gardens at Paramahansa Yogananda's Self Realization Fellowship. The gardens are an immaculately peaceful oasis in the middle of bustling civilization. The SRF definitely has a large presence in town.

Later, we took a class with Lauren from Yoga Swamis, and learned a bit about how the community is handling the recent disappearance of the famous Yoga Yurt. Everyone seems to sorely miss the Yurt, and other studios are generously offering up their space for the teachers to continue their donation classes and community service. Lauren taught a fantastic class with fun mood lighting and original sequencing in a style that clearly came from her heart. Thanks, Lauren!

After that, we took a hot class at Yoga Tropics. The Bikram style class was new for me, and I really enjoyed it. This also led to the Yoga-fy tip about branching out. We can tend to cling to a certain style of yoga that resonates with us. This is, of course the best way to take our studies to a deeper,  more focused place. Yet, we shouldn't forget that yoga has as many different facets as there are different people. It's said that the sage Patanjali had a crown of a thousand cobra heads that could teach as many people their individual yoga at once. In a similar way, modern yoga's plethora of styles offer something for everyone. It's imperative also to remember that we can each learn something from every style. Remaining open to diversity expands our knowledge and consciousness, both on the mat and off.

Now, we're on the road to San Francisco for about a day, so I'm wishing and hoping to fit in at least one class there. It's going to be an action-packed day, though, so keep your fingers crossed.

NAMASTE!

Yoga Goes on Vacation!

We've officially taken our yoga on vacation, and it feels good! It's been over a year since we last traveled, so our savvy traveler skills were a bit rusty. As such, we were fortunate enough to encounter some gentle challenges right away. I believe the yoga-fy tip of the day was, "Let go of expectations." Did that ever come in handy!

The challenges:
1. flight delayed 5 hours
2. forgetting to bring a credit card "safety blanket"
3. the emergence of manic energy
4. unhappy young children on a 5 hour+ flight

The yoga-fied solutions (in order):
1. easy procurement of an alternate flight which was shorter, nonstop, and arrived right on time
2. letting the credit card go, trusting that we've responsibly arranged our available finances and recognizing that we don't want to accumulate debt anyways
3. sliding into meditative mind and breath at every conscious moment
4. maintaining a meditative mind and breath at every conscious moment

We practiced postures wherever and whenever we could, from the gate, to the plane, to baggage claim. Scott felt more inclined to take active asanas like parsvottanasana (at right) or seated postures like simhasana and sukhasana on the plane, while I felt I needed more grounding, so practiced sitting meditation and pranayamas like nadi shodhana.



Garudasana arms

 The most helpful technique I found was putting on relaxing music and sinking into meditation. Jack Kornfield speaks of "taking the one seat in the center of life." I found this meditation to be the most grounding and calming practice of them all. Taking the one seat on an airplane full of people chatting, laughing, yelling, and crying felt like catching a glimpse of God hearing the reverberating sounds of planet Earth. Try it sometime. Check out an excerpt of this meditation here: http://tinyurl.com/39woc83
With all of this, we arrived safe and sound and feeling wonderfully rested. Thank you yoga!

Stay tuned for the next installment: Yoga on the Go tours Encinitas, CA! Have suggestions for studios we should visit in Encinitas? Let us know!

Namaste!



Yoga on the Go

Photo by bagaball, from Flickr Creative Commons

As I prepare for several long journeys by plane this holiday season, I know I am not alone. Not even close. Though I have always been fond of traveling, I am also not alone in dreading the exhausted, drained, and dirty feeling I have post-air travel. Except, this time I have hope. Hope comes in the form of Yoga on the Go. The last time I flew, I tried every which way to incorporate breathing exercises, postures, and simple yogic attitude adjustments into every moment of the journey. The results were palpable, if not down right dramatic. I had none of the usual stiffness in the neck, back, and legs. Usually that stiffness leads to a headache, which I also had the pleasure of skipping. Oftentimes, I would experience a bit of a post-flight cold or some other immune system malfunction, but this time I stayed healthy as can be. I would even say I almost felt rested after my trek through airports and the air.

So I'm preparing to run another, more official Yoga on the Go experiment through 6 airports, 6 planes, and 22 hours of flight time on our travels to visit loved ones around the country. I'll be documenting poses, breath work, sequences, and meditations I find practical and helpful along the way. I will keep you posted on this 3 week-long study with real-time updates via twitter and posts here on the blog all the way through our journey into the new year.

As we yoga-fy our travel time, we'd love to hear your suggestions, too! Tell us how you yoga-fy a journey by air, and we'll include your ideas in our official Yoga on the Go study.

Web, meet Infinity Crossing.

Thaaaaat's right, we finally have lift off! Today, December 1, 2010, we launch Infinity Crossing on the web through our official website:

www.infinitycrossing.com

There you can find out more about us, our philosophy, our teaching, and our practice. You can also purchase classes or private lessons through our online store, a feature that will be growing tremendously in the months to come. Keep an eye out for our exclusive line of merchandise, to be unveiled very soon!

Of course, no web launch would be complete without its trusty sidekicks: Facebook and twitter! Yes, now you can follow our twitter and Facebook activity through links here on the blog and on www.infinitycrossing.com.

Phew! I hope this is enough yoga to tide you over for now.

Once you've seen the sites, let us know what you think! We welcome feedback and love questions, so let us have it! Thank you for choosing to walk this path with us. We look forward to sharing the journey of yoga with you. Namaste.

www.infinitycrossing.com

infinitycrossing.blogspot.com

twitter: @InfinityXing

Facebook: Infinity Crossing