Good yoga instructors and Beginner Syndrome

I officially admit that I have hit the stage in my yoga practice where I have Beginner Syndrome. For those of you who have never experienced this phenomenon, let me explain. Beginner syndrome (BS) occurs when you are still really pretty new to something, but have decided that you know what you are doing. In the case of computers, the guy who learns how to make tons of advanced changes to the settings on their computer, and then proceeds to make those changes on your computer, which subsequently results in a dark purple screen with everything written in Chinese, has BS.

The second year law student who gives bad legal advice to their friends and family because they somehow think the first year course have taught them anything about real world legal problems has BS.  Any person who has experience babysitting and decides to use this knowledge to give parenting advice to people with children has BS.

Side Crow 

In my case, the BS was subtle.  Although many people have practiced yoga for years, I had decided that I was some kind of advanced pose practitioner ( I have never claimed to have the yogi mind thing down). after 10 months of diligent practice.  I mean, I had taken a 4 week introductory class AND I can do a damned headstand.

In my state of BS, I decided that I could walk into any studio and utilize my vast yogic knowledge about form and that it didn't matter who was teaching me. So, I switched from my studio with a good reputation for experienced teachers, to the crowded studio with no adjustments and very little instruction.  I went for a few weeks, priding in my ability to look like a ballerina in dancer pose, my ability to look like a semi pro break dancer in side crow, not noticing that because I was not really paying attention to my breath or my posture, my deltoids and lower back were gradually weakening. And then there was the day my BS symptoms got so bad that I thought I could go to two back to back classes.

That was the day my back went out. And, after going back to my studio tonight, I also realized that I have a deltoid injury as a result of the BS.

This brings me to the important part: GOOD YOGA INSTRUCTION IS VITAL to healthy practice and let me guide you through a badly taught class and my awesome class tonight to illustrate why.  (As an aside, I have worn HR monitors to both classes once and I burned 700 calories in each class, so it wasn't as if I got some extra calorie burning love in the poorly taught class.

In my class tonight, we went back to mountain pose(basically standing up straight) three times and spent several breaths there working on our posture.  The instructor, who has several years of experience, said things like, make sure your shoulder blades come together in the pose,  spread your feet out wide, he came around to check our breathing and adjusted everyone at least once. During my 5 classes at the other studio with various teachers, I got exactly one comment about how I was doing a pose and I never was moved or adjusted.

In my class tonight, the instructor saw that I had to modify a pose (due to my deltoid issue) and came around and helped me do the modification correctly.  In my other class, the instructor would briefly mention that modifications existed but would only demonstrate the most advanced form of the pose she could think of.  That only encourages those of us with BS to attempt poses that our bodies do not want to do.

My class tonight was an intermediate level class (meaning that I was the most beginning student there), but the instructor spent a lot of time focusing on the basics that people with BS tend to forget. He spent time telling us how to protect our backs and explaining how to move from one pose to the next.  The other instructor just called out the poses and checked several times to see how she was doing on time.

Regular crow (I see at least 5 things I am not doing correctly, can you spot them? :) )

I will admit two things, I would not be 1/10th as good at leading a class as the inexperienced instructor  from the studio that caused my injury. And I am sure that there are people, not me, that have enough experience that they can just go to a class and they know how to put there bodies into the right position. However,  beginners and people with BS are not those students. We need guidance, adjustments and instruction to get us through class healthier than when we started.

So, getting over my BS, I officially readmit that I am still very new to yoga and I am no longer going to accept instructors and classes that do not provide guidance and assistance to people who think that they know what they are doing, but who actually don't.

After a sick break

So, I wasn't really sick, I had pink eye. If you don't know what pink eye is, you were never a toddler and/or you never were the parent of a toddler. The point is, I had to take an entire week off yoga and running to prevent the spread of said disease. There are many things about this that stink for me and the rest of the universe.  (I will say I still walked a bunch, I did mange to log 16 miles over the week, but I didn't really run and I didn't do yoga at all)

 First and foremost, I have a lot of energy. A LOT of energy. I am like that 90's commercial for the energizer bunny, I keep going and going....  I can talk and jump around forever causing all sorts of havoc if I can't exercise. If I don't get my workout in, there is a slight chance that I will start doing push-ups or sit-ups on the floor off my office or, sorry Ryan, I may do them on the floor of some other poor colleague's office. Second, I am able to get out any anger, sadness and general neediness with a good session of yoga or a good run. Less exercise, more time spent talking about "my feelings" with anyone and everyone who will listen (trust me I talk about these things plenty even with my exercise outlet).

So, I was very excited when my antibiotics ran out and I felt safe conquering a short run and a yoga class. I was psyched to redo the beautiful backbend and head stand I had performed just a week and a half earlier. I desperately wanted to up the amount of time I spent at 6.5 miles per hour on the treadmill.

 I forgot the main rule of being sick and not exercising, my body was not the same at it was a week earlier and I didn't to do the things I wanted to do with it.  Before I started exercising, I forgot that I had eaten loads of cookies, chips and jimmy johns sandwiches while I was sick because I felt sorry for my self and could be bothered to go out. I was a couple pounds heavier than my last attempt at exercise greatness. I forgot that the abdominal muscles have a very short memory and that extra crunches from the week before do not carry over.

I managed to get into a back bend, but it looked more like a deflated balloon than a beautiful wheel. My body didn't even want to go into the headstand. My breathing sounded a wheezing dog than the sound of the ocean (the sound of the ocean is the goal for yogic breathing). As I ran, my body only wanted to go 6 miles per hour and it only wanted to do that for 15 or so minutes before I had to transition to the power walking mode on the treadmill.

This was the kind of workout day that would have sent me further down the spiral of inactivity until I was spending my time sitting on the couch watching Hair Battle Spectacular. That is until I found yoga. Okay, the entire city of Seattle and most of the rest of the country found it first, but I still had to find the studio. Okay, the studio was about 15 blocks away from my house, so I didn't even need to find the studio. Finding yoga was about an unlikely source telling me it was a good idea and deciding that my hamstrings needed some love after so many months of running.

The yoga people have this whole thing about being where you are with your body as it is, everyday. In yoga, you can have an awesome class where you do a headstand one day and be just as awesome sitting in child's pose(the rest pose) half the class, the next. There are no fat days, gross days, I suck at everything days in class. You just are where you are and go with it. And for the next few days, at least, I am going to be slower and less bendy, and I am going to try my yogic brains out to be perfectly okay with that.

Poses for my Yoga Studio

When I open my own Yoga studio, years in the future, I will include these poses to make beginners and people like me feel better about themselves:

Real yoga poses and links to information about this life changing activity can be found at yogajournal.com

• Full Moon - This pose involves wearing skin tight pants that are too small while executing a forward bend, nuff said
• Flat Tire - There is a beautiful pose called wheel in yoga. It involves doing a full back bend, it looks gorgeous and feels great on the back. Flat tire is the pose that happens when either the arms, legs or butt won't lift all the way or at all.
• Blow Out - This is a pose that is nastily created by slipping and falling in one's own sweat while attempting wheel.
• Peeing Dog - This pose is halfway between downward dog and three-legged dog. The leg lifts, but it does not bend back beautifully in the air behind you.
• The Elaine Dancer -  This pose is a variation of dancer. The legs are the same but the outstretched arm flails in an odd way behind the practitioner
• Forest Pose - This is just sickenly cute, it is the pose that involves both my preschooler and I having our legs in Tree Pose while holding hands.
• Zombie Pose (reanimated corpse) - This pose is executed by either sneezing or getting a really bad itch during corpse pose.

More to come.....but lunch break is over. :)

Exercise

After a few difficult weeks in my personal and work life, I decided that what I really need is a few kick butt weeks of sweat and movement. My dad always used to say that exercise would cure everything.  He would suggest exercise as a cure for things that didn't always make sense, and we would often create even more ridiculous scenarios that exercise could cure. I remember once feeling awful, with a bad cold, and not being very interested in my dad's suggestion that getting out and training would somehow make my headache and runny nose go awayy. Got a broken leg, "just bike it off", need a new job, "take a run instead."  As long as I was willing to break a sweat and discuss philosophy at the dinner table, life was good in the Bennett household(okay, my childhood was good anyway, no .  My dad has calmed down as he has gotten older, he believes in rest days and taking care of one's self as a way to health.  But he has a point about exercise as a cure all.  I have found over the last year especially, that movement is key to emotional and physical health.

When I have a stressful day, I go to yoga and it helps me feel refreshed and meditative. 
When I am stuffed up, I run and my body feels less congested.
When I am hurt, I run and pretend that I am running away from the person who hurt me and I feel a sense of catharsis as I go.
When I feel weak, I move my body into a pose, like a headstand, that I was previously unable to achieve and I feel strong.
When I feel old, I run as fast as I can, smile as I go, and I feel young again.
When my mind is racing, I go to yoga, and it stops racing for an hour and a hald.

Exercise is not a cure all. It can't give money to the poor, fix a broken leg or the flu, but if you have never worked out issues in your physical and emotional life through sweat, I urge you to give exercise a try.