Tag Archives: meditation

Continuity of Meditation & Asana on Retreat

Posted on by Addie at Bodhi Tree Pose

I’ve been back from my retreat at Spirit Rock for a week now, and I’m finally finding some time to share my experiences. One of my main interests in blogging is to talk about the continuum between mindful movement (yoga) and mindful stillness (seated meditation) in my practice. I don’t always find it easy to identify that continuum, but I want to make it stronger so that my yoga and meditation practices can support each other better.

spiritrock_bell

The bell at Spirit Rock that calls retreatants to sitting sessions.

Not surprisingly, this is all a lot easier on retreat! While it was mostly a meditation retreat, alternating between 45 minutes of sitting meditation and 45 minutes of walking meditation for most of the day, we also had the opportunity to attend yoga classes at least once a day.

These yoga classes were an absolute life saver.  Whoa. Let me tell you…when you do that much sitting day after day, the yoga is huge in relieving the tensions, aches, and pains that accumulate in the body. My achiness peaked on the third day, but after that, I actually felt MORE open and comfortable in sitting.

I also found the yoga supported my sitting practice in a second major way: it built up my energy. I have the tendency when I start to get calm and concentrated, to go too far in that direction, and I fall asleep. This didn’t happen when I first started meditating, because I had all that restless agitation to keep me awake! I have been working on balancing the energy level in sitting, so that I can be calm and concentrated, but also vibrant and alert. Each time I took a yoga class on the retreat, I felt energized for the next sitting session. Much like the disappearance of my achiness, over the course of the retreat, I found I was struggling less with sleepiness.

One of the Buddhas at Spirit Rock

One of the Buddhas at Spirit Rock

The yoga practice itself felt more mindful – like a logical extension of the sitting and walking we’d been doing. I think there are a several reasons for this:

  • Continuity is supported by the retreat itself – not just concerning the yoga, but through all activities (eating, walking from one place to another, taking a shower). Everything is part of the practice.
  • Being surrounded by dozens of other students doing the same practice you are, with the same (or at least similar) intentions. This feels different from going to a public yoga class where people are gathering from all kinds of different places, each bringing in their own busy energy, and each with their own goals for the practice, ranging from the sublime to the superficial.
  • The silence of the retreat helps you to get out of your head. When you’re a yoga teacher and you attend another teacher’s class, it’s hard not to go into an analytical space as you experience their style, cues you like/dislike, etc. In a silent retreat, the students don’t speak, but the teacher does – but her words were chosen carefully, and she wasn’t just speaking to fill the space. And, probably it goes without saying, but these yoga classes were done without music. No distractions.
  • The presence of the teacher herself. The yoga teacher participated in most of the seated meditation with us, came to the nightly talks, and was really integrated into the retreat. She was operating at the same speed as us.
  • The yoga was simple.  No elaborate or super challenging poses, and the poses were given without an abundance of technical alignment cues. Normally, I teach a very alignment-based form of Hatha Yoga, but it’s always a fine line to teach with precision without making the practice too cerebral. The simplicity of this practice on retreat allowed us to just stay present with the body.
  • And, the yoga was just what we needed. The focus of the yoga was on reinforcing the themes of the retreat, and preparing the body for sitting. We were opening the hips, releasing the shoulders, and turning towards the body with kindness, rather than emphasizing fitness, technique, or the attainment of particular poses. Not that these goals are always a problem, but they can actually compete with the intention to make the asana a meditative experience.
  • The asana practice didn’t overuse one’s physical energy to the point where you collapse into savasana at the end. When I go to a more vigorous class, sometimes I leave feeling drained rather than relaxed. That’s a sign of overusing energy. I know some students are so wound up, they feel like exhaustion is the only way to actually relax in savasana at the end. But, ideally, yoga balances the energy rather than draining it. True relaxation is not the same as exhaustion or dullness.

Going on retreat

Addie at Bodhi Tree Pose's avatar

I’m leaving this morning for a Vipassana retreat at Spirit Rock!  I’ll be back in a week, and I’ll be sure to post some retreat reflections here.  In the meantime, there’s no blogging during “noble silence.”

Differences Between Yin & Restorative Yoga

Posted on by Addie at Bodhi Tree Pose

When I first discovered Yin Yoga several years ago, I was drawn to it because it seemed to provide a bridge between my yoga practice and my meditation practice like nothing else had before.  Since I’ve been immersed in Yin (and have trained in Restorative, too), I’ve noticed that people often wonder – what’s the difference between Yin and Restorative?

addie upavistha photoshoot, squareOn the surface, they look similar.  Both are very mellow yoga practices done primarily on the floor, using plenty of props and holding the poses for minutes at a time.  Both styles can have incredible stress-relieving benefits, and the repertoire of poses even overlaps somewhat.  But, they are not the same!

In my observation, one of the main distinctions is that in Restorative, one is encouraged to rest both physically and mentally. In Yin, the poses are approached more like meditation postures, keeping the mind more alert and present, avoiding zoning out, so we can cultivate mindfulness. This is absolutely not meant as a criticism of Restorative.  I love both, and think there’s a time for rest and a time for meditation.  But, this aspect of mindfulness in Yin Yoga (especially as taught by Sarah Powers) is the main reason I first fell in love with it.

Along with the mental alertness, Yin Yoga also embraces a bit more sensation in the poses, stretching to a sustainable edge.  In Restorative, the objective is not so much to stretch, but to gently open the body and breath while balancing the nervous system.  I’ve heard people say that the difference is that Restorative uses props (like bolsters, blankets, blocks, etc.) and that Yin doesn’t.  I passionately disagree with that!  (I explain more about props here.)

Back to the topic at hand, Yin Yoga also works with the energy body in some specific ways that are different from Restorative Yoga. “Yin” and “Yang” are Taoist terms, alluding to the fact that Yin Yoga draws upon wisdom from Traditional Chinese Medicine, using the stretches to stimulate the movement of Chi along the body’s energy meridians.

Lastly, the repertoire of Yin Yoga poses mostly favors the legs, hips, lower body, and spine (though not exclusively). Restorative Yoga, on the other hand, is full of delicious supported backbends.  But, this is also where I tend to mix the two styles together in my teaching and practice.  Those bolster backbends are a great way of including the upper body meridians in the Yin practice, and I believe that if you practice them with the same vibrant attentiveness as any other Yin pose, then they fit seamlessly within your Yin practice.

Namaste!

Origin Story

Posted on by Addie at Bodhi Tree Pose

Every new blog has to start by explaining its existence, right?  Mostly kidding.  But, in my experience, the first post is the hardest.  So, I thought I’d start by talking a little about what I hope to explore here.

I am a yoga teacher and a pretty dedicated meditator.  I’ve been practicing yoga for about 15 years, and now specialize in teaching Therapeutic Hatha Yoga,  as well as Yin Yoga.  Many of my students have injuries or ailments that yoga helps them address, from this gentle, healing approach to the physical practice.  I added Vipassana (Insight) Meditation to my practice about seven years ago, which gets us to part of the reason for this blog.

I started meditating because I recognized that there’s a whole body of teachings and practices that would help me work with the mind more than my asana practice had so far.  But, from there I began to feel that I had developed two separate practices – one of yoga asana, and one of meditation.  Each was hugely beneficial on its own, but I began to wonder…why doesn’t this feel like it’s all part of ONE unified practice?

It’s not that I expect the same results from two different activities, but the continuum between them has felt a bit murky. I also recognize there are some real philosophical differences between the lineages that produced modern Hatha Yoga and the Buddhism from which my meditation practice developed.  Nonetheless, both are part of my human quest for wholeness, so I want my yoga and my meditation to “talk” to each other as much as possible!  I’m sure the separation is really something that exists more IN my mind that outside of it, but trying to bring my practices together is an attempt to resolve that avidya itself (avidya = misperception).

One last thought about the origin and motivation for typing my thoughts up on this blog.  Everyone who’s been around yoga for a while has heard some version of this idea: “Yoga is not just about the physical postures, it is meant to prepare the yogi for meditation.”  And yet, I know for a fact that many yoga students, despite being rather adept at poses, are quite intimidated by the idea of sitting still in meditation!  It would be extremely hard to find a mainstream Hatha Yoga class that say, ended with 20 minutes of seated meditation.  My main question is: “What’s up with that???”

I may not be the only one with a mental dividing line between asana and meditation!  Could we be practicing and teaching in ways that would encourage more crossover between the two?

Let me know if you have thought about this topic, too…I’d love to hear from you.

P.S. If it seems like I’m just picking on yogis who don’t meditate, I also think there are plenty of meditators who need to locate their actual bodies through some sort of physical practice like yoga! 🙂