That Darn Pendulum Just Keeps Swinging.

Photo by striatic, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons

Te Pratiprasavah Heya Sukshmaha. (Patañjali's Yoga Sutras 2.10) My teachers, Eddie Modestini and Nicki Doane translate this sutra as follows: "When the obstacles do not appear to be present on the Path and in Life, do not be fooled. They are always there and serve as a reminder to be ever vigilant. We would do well to cultivate and maintain a Beginner's mind and to never assume that we know anything. That way we can be open to learn new things. Expectations are the root of all suffering."

Well, I'd say that just about sums things up at the moment. Just when we think we've found that center point of balance on the swinging pendulum of life, that darn pendulum just keeps right on swinging to an extreme we thought was far behind us. All we can do is hold on and try to enjoy the ride. Of course, we've learned much from our time on the pendulum leading up to this moment, so we handle unexpected, unfortunate, and/or unpleasant events with more maturity and equanimity. But, we're still newbies on this path of Yoga, so of course we're also still whining quite a bit about life's little dualities.

The road is rocky, but the view is spectacular.

There may just be something in the air, maybe the stars are aligned in a mischievous fashion, or maybe we're all waiting around for a superhero to show up. Whatever it is, things seem to be a little out of whack all around us. As for our end, it has certainly been a pileup of the vehicles of misfortune, partly due to our own poor planning and partly due to entirely unforeseen circumstances. The pendulum seems to have taken our poor financial planning for a ride straight into a steaming pile of potential illness, bureaucratic red tape, friends in heartache, and injury. In the not too distant past, I would have said it's just a gnarly case of bad timing/luck. Yet, I've come to believe even more so that times like this pack powerful lessons that we need to learn, or will otherwise confront again and again until the message sticks. 

So what are we learning? Well, first and foremost we've become painfully aware that proper financial planning is an enormous part of yoga-fying our lives. Sure, yogis don't need money when they live in caves. But modern yogis trying to live in Western society find money an annoying necessity at times.  I'm the first one to admit that I am something of an infant when it comes to intelligently and maturely managing family finances. The few things I do know how to do are basic (i.e. savings, emergency funds, priority allocation of funds) and I still have a lot of work to do before I master them. Moreover, I remain ignorant of the more sophisticated financial planning practices that someone my age really and truly needs to learn in order to have a secure nest egg for late life (because yogis notoriously live long lives!). Recently, we've become big fans of a few money blogs that have provided us with fantastic tips. To name some of our favorites:

Get Rich Slowly
7 Million in 7 Years
Erica.biz
Zen Habits
I Will Teach You to Be Rich
The Motley Fool

Disclaimer: Obviously, we aren't doing, nor do we endorse, everything on these blogs. We simply find some very helpful tips there for our personal and professional finances. Maybe you'll find something useful there, too.

That pot of gold must be around here somewhere...

As we scratch and save to try to recover from a holiday trip that was planned and paid for on a bigger income than our current situation, we are also faced with moving to a new house about 6 months before our finances would have been ready. We have been emotionally ready to move for some time now, but were hoping to put it off long enough to recover from our trip's expenses. Yet, our duplex neighbors and friends have decided to part ways, providing ample impetus for own move. Fingers, toes, and eyeballs remain crossed to find the right place for us!

But this also brings us to friends in heartache. How do we, as good yogis, provide comfort and solace to our dear friends when they are in pain? We do what we would want from our friends: having those tough emotional talks, providing whatever advice we can, and even doing some restorative, healing yoga together. It's yet another reminder that no matter how yoga-fied we think we are, we're still part of this earthly life and have to face all the suffering and dualities that come along with it. The pendulum keeps swinging.

Photo by Jen Fry

Adding injury to insult, I write this post delicately balancing ice on my mysteriously injured shoulder. My teachers would tell you that I'm often an "intensely intense" yogini. Give me a direction and I'll probably find a way to overdo it. Somehow, unbeknownst to me, I tweaked a very small and particular part of my shoulder. The result is a joint that operates perfectly 99.9% of the time. That remaining .1% sees a certain small movement sending a lightning bolt from my shoulder to my elbow. At the moment, I'm in the wait-and-see period, icing and trying to rest the shoulder to see if it will heal itself. Again, fingers, toes, and eyeballs are crossed! In the meantime, I'm taking stock of my "intensely intense" tendencies, trying to back off a bit in my practice even though practice doesn't hurt my shoulder, and learning a bit more about using my words to teach rather than relying on demonstration. I actually thought it would be a while before I had to start learning these lessons about my practice and teaching, but I guess I've landed myself in an accelerated class. I'm doing my best to keep up!

Being a good yogini, I know that all of this is temporary. That darn pendulum we're on will soon reach the extreme end of its period and begin it's movement back to equilibrium. And as long as the Earth keeps turning, it will surely then keep on swinging to the other extreme, certain to venture into new lessons to learn and sights to see. I am sure of this. That doesn't mean it isn't challenging, though. In the meantime, we're working to keep our Beginner's minds open, receptive, and alert. Equilibrium will come. We have only to enjoy the ride. 

NAMASTE!

What's Goin' On?

With so much change afoot recently, I feel it necessary to provide a "state of Infinity Crossing" address. So what is goin' on around here?

Photo by Brittany G, Flickr Creative Commons

ICYoga Paia

I'll start with the yoga. We've now converted our ICYoga studio in Paia to a space exclusively for private yoga instruction. This format is more harmonious with our existing space, and our ever-busying schedules outside the studio. Private yoga instruction is the traditional method of study, and provides in-depth, personalized training that beautifully enhances the student's practice, and is very hard to come by in a group setting. We are also available to travel for private lessons. For more information or to schedule your appointment, please go to infinitycrossing.com, or contact us directly at jeanmarie@infinitycrossing.com or 808-463-9413.

Jean Marie is still teaching public classes at Island Spirit Yoga in Lahaina on Tuesdays 10:30-Noon. The class is Vinyasa Flow: studying structural alignment while emphasizing the union of breath and movement. In the style of my teachers, we explore chanting, pranayama, meditation, yoga sutras, and asanas. This is an all-levels class.

We've just done a couple of exciting photo shoots with one of our favorite photographers and dear friend, Ms. Jen Fry. The photos exhibit asanas demonstrated by Jean Marie amidst the stunning beauty of Maui's north shore. This collection is currently in editing, and will be exhibited soon. Here's a sneak preview:

Photo by Jen Fry

We're also steadily building our social networking presence on twitter and Facebook. Follow us on twitter for our Yoga-fy Tip of the Day, and to keep up with the very latest in Infinity Crossing Yoga. What's a "Yoga-fy Tip of the Day?" It's simply a thought, action, quote, or helpful hint that resonates with us as we work to Yoga-fy our lives. We hope you will find them helpful, too. Don't do the twitter thing? Like us on Facebook to get your daily Yoga-fy tip, and join our growing community of friends.

Maui Runners Club = Happy Feet

Infinity Crossing has a new little sister, too! Or maybe it's more like a mischievous little brother... Thanks to the enthusiasm of our friends, we've started Maui Runners Club. It's a disorganization of people of who love Maui and love running. The idea was born out of our recreational beach and trail runs around the island, comparing notes with our runner-friends, and wondering how we could get together with other runners-for-fun here on Maui. Now, MRC loosely organizes fun-runs all over the island, roughly once a month. We are currently a hub of barefoot and minimalist footwear runners, but we of course welcome shoe-lovers as well. As the club grows, the events will likely get more and more "out there," so bring your sense of humor. All events are BYOStuff, and run-at-your-own-risk, so come ready to have some fun and meet some great people! Follow MRC on twitter and Facebook for details on the next event!

ICYoga Ladies' Longsleeve Shirt by InfinityCrossing

Last but certainly not least, we've installed the very first Infinity Crossing Shop here on the blog! Now you can find great ICYoga merchandise, including customizable apparel for women and men. The store also includes custom-made prints of our photography from the Valley Isle, with the option to select prints, posters, and even canvas prints in a wide array of sizes. The ICYoga line of products is only in it's infancy, and we're constantly working to expand it. So if something you want is not currently in the store, contact us and we'll do our best to accommodate! 

  

That's all for now. Even more changes are in store, so we'll keep you posted with all the new developments. Until next time, yogis & yoginis... 

NAMASTE!

Yoga Comes Home

Early morning on the Pali

Our planetary orbit around the Sun that is Yoga is finally bringing us back from the cold outer reaches of the solar system to the warm & sunny realm we like to call home. Yoga on the Go has certainly been an epic journey filled with adventure, rain, snow, family, friends, way too much food, puppy kisses, some dis-ease, and of course yoga. The Yoga on the Go experiment started as a documentation of how sprinkling yoga into airplane and car travel might help ease the accompanying physical and mental strain of traveling. This really is quite obvious: integrating yoga into the act of traveling does significantly cut down on mental exhaustion and physical fatigue. Holiday travel can be especially stressful, and while we did experience some minor twinges of manic energy, we mostly cruised through packed airports, planes, and highways, thanks to yoga. All of this I anticipated.

Took the "red eye" home

However, what I didn't see coming was the challenge we experienced with everyday living away from our established "lifestyle of wellness." Not to say that we live a perfect lifestyle, by any means, but it is a pretty darn good one by our standards. We run, swim, yoga, surf, garden, and eat a largely vegan diet. The only component of that list that came on vacation with us was yoga. Apparently, everything else stayed home. Granted, we didn't expect to do much swimming or surfing or gardening during a mainland winter. Yet, the biggest flaw in our Yoga on the Go series was in failing to plan for maintaining some semblance of our diet. We decided before embarking on the trip that we wouldn't "impose" our diet on the friends and family with whom we'd be staying. Rather, we'd happily eat what our loved ones were generous enough to provide. While we were deeply grateful for all the wonderful food our loved ones prepared for us, we certainly felt the difference between our largely vegan diet and the largely un-vegan diet we encountered on our journey. Perhaps the most interesting of things we noticed about the diet change was the sheer quantity of food we were capable of eating. The most glaring example was the now infamous pumpkin roll with cream cheese filling. This was a devilishly delicious cake, I must admit. When we ate a slice of this cake after a plentiful dinner, we both felt like we could easily go on to eat the entire cake ourselves. This, of course, terrified us. Many of the processed, ultra rich foods we ate triggered this ravenous craving for more of the same food. So, to satisfy curiosity, instead of having another slice of cake, we decided to try an orange. Not two bites into that orange we both started to feel just how overfull our bellies actually were.

So we became keenly aware of just how critical a healthy diet is to a yoga-fied lifestyle. It's incredibly difficult to maintain a consistent yoga practice when we eat nutrient deficient foods everyday. Those foods affect not only our physiques, but also our moods, attitudes, energy levels, and on and on. How can we expect to nurture a lifestyle of holistic wellness when we fuel our bodies with empty calories?
It's taken about a week for us to start recovering completely from the havoc wreaked by 3 weeks of meat, dairy, and various processed foods. And this is in no way a criticism of our loved ones, but rather a cold, hard look at our culture of food. Simple, raw, organic foods are just not available in many places. Or if they are available, they are outrageously expensive and out of reach for many cash-strapped budgets. There's also the emotional attachment to these fatty diets with which we all grew up. That's why they're called "comfort foods." Yet, they provide no real comfort for our bodies, and probably only serve to make us sick.

A rare treat: tofu curry bowl!

Many of our loved ones expressed a desire to explore a cleaner diet, but were frustrated with the difficulty of making that transition. We happen to live in a part of the world where we can grow food year round, and have plenty of health food stores and vegetarian or even vegan dining out options. I really don't have an easy solution for my friends and family who live in places with a fast food joint on every corner. The only thing I could encourage them to do was to take it one meal at a time. Let that one meal gradually grow into more. Pay close attention to how a vegan meal affects the feeling in the body, mind, and energy level. Compare that to a heavier meal. Experiment with different foods and find what feels the best. That should help spark the motivation to create that lifestyle change. For indeed, it does take a great deal of motivation and determination to eat healthy foods when unhealthy foods are quick and easy in most places. The tipping point came for us when we found very clear intolerances to dairy and wheat products upon trying a monodiet for a week, then introducing foods back in one at a time. That was a huge motivation for us to make a big change in our diet.

Also, check out this great film I just watched, called "Food Matters." It definitely fits right in to this train of thought on yoga-fying our eating habits. It's good to be home, and, as always, NAMASTE!

Time's up in Tennessee

As our time taking Yoga on the Go comes to a close, we have mixed feelings of nostalgia for our time spent with loved ones and excitement as our return home draws nigh. We've had some great yoga here. We paid a New Year's Day visit to The Glowing Body in Knoxville, TN. What a surprise we had to visit a studio that is set up much like the studio of our dreams! They are equipped with a cafe, reading area, boutique, two yoga rooms, and a massage room. It is almost exactly what we envision for our studio to come! Not only that but we had a fine yoga class there, complete with a divine playing of gongs for savasana. Thank you for the great experience, and please keep up the wonderful work!

We were also fortunate enough to share a bit of yoga with our family:

Photo by www.active.com

~For my mother, who's rehabbing a broken wrist and experiencing some carpal tunnel-like symptoms, we worked with box-on-the-wall in stages, focusing primarily on articulating the hands by spreading through the fingers and pressing through the inner triad of the index finger and thumb knuckles and the pad of the palm under the thumb.

~With my dad and uncle, we worked on some poses for digestion after those big holiday meals. For this, we focused on simhasana and supta virasana. We also worked on back strengtheners like variations of salabhasana, bhujangasana, and quadruped arm and leg raises.

~With my grandmother, we ran through basic sun salutations, and heard about her regular class on chair exercises with friends of hers. Grandma's kicking butt!

Sukhasana, just barely

As we prepare for the journey home, we also reflect on how we've yoga-fied our air travel thus far. Being people of relatively small stature, we have little trouble practicing varying seats in the plane: sukhasana, simhasana, and the gamut of vajrasanas. I am keenly aware, however, that for many people the small seat on an airplane is barely enough room to sit, much less move into asanas. Still, most people are able to at least take ankle circles, get up at regular intervals to walk around the plane a bit, and take stretches through the arms, shoulders, and neck. Moreover, everyone should be able to practice pranayamas and meditation.

Those lovely massage chairs

What we do on either side of the flight itself is of utmost importance, as well. We like to run through a few easy postures at the gate while waiting around for boarding time. We are also very fond of those massage chairs. For just a few dollars, we got a nice 15 minute massage. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it definitely makes a huge difference!

So now we're off, making our way back to the Valley Isle. We're overflowing with gratitude to all our loved ones who made this journey a fantastic one. And, of course, we're humbled by the work that yoga does in our lives in ever-surprising ways. Stay tuned as we wrap up the Yoga on the Go series in the next installment. Until then,

NAMASTE!