Trusting Your Yoga Practice

       A few months ago, I held a yoga retreat at the beautiful Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley. It was an incredible weekend of renewal and rejuvenation for all.  One of the attendees, a dear friend and long time student, made a comment at the end that that really resonated with me. She confessed that she had come to the retreat anticipating a weekend of kick butt Wonder Woman Vinyasa Yoga. However, once the weekend unfolded, she realized the Yoga turned out to be more mellow and restorative. Yet she walked away from the retreat totally satisfied—the classes, the flow, the poses (and of course, the post-yoga martinis served by the Quail Lodge bartender) were EXACTLY what she needed.

What a wonderful epiphany. As an instructor, I encourage all students to leave their expectations at the door. Yes, sometimes we all crave that yoga buzz or even better, that yoga butt...BUT it's so important to TRUST that you will take away everything you need in that moment — even if it isn't the experience you anticipated.  A yoga class is a work in progress and as a teacher, sometimes my plan for the class is completely different than what the class seems to need.  Hence, I teach to who shows and what their bodies are asking for - it is a very intuitive practice for me.

I am a very eclectic teacher, and incorporate lots of different styles of yoga into my classes -- think of it as a yogic smorgasbord — because we really need to move and groove and many different ways to really effect our overall bodily health and well being.  Every time we hit our mats, it is something different.

Some of these I love to teach include:

Vinyasa
A flowing dance like practice moving fluidly from one pose to the next with each inhale and exhale. Each series of poses is linked by the breath in a seamless fashion giving the practitioner a sense of working towards a goal or a completion of sequence from start to finish.

Kundalini
Wild, wacky and constantly moving, invigorating poses with lots of breath work. The faster pace of this practice is intended to release the Kundalini (serpent) energy located at the base of the spine. The breathing will skyrocket your energy giving you that yoga high, while the postures and meditation keep you grounded and focused.

Yin
This style of poses are passive, meaning you're supposed to relax the muscles and bones and let gravity do all the work. The asanas are held for long periods of time so really the practice builds strong patience and a sense of mindfulness.  Yin Yoga is as much for the mind as the body, and is quite challenging despite sounding easy.

Restorative
Much less work, much more relaxation. You spend as many as 20 minutes each in just four or five simple poses using strategically placed props like blankets, bolsters, blocks, sandbags and soothing lavender eye pillows to help you sink into a fabulous place of letting go. There's also psychic cleansing: The mind goes to mush, then you eventually feel like a new person.

At the end of all these practices is Savasana, or total relaxation pose. It is the final and most important pose done in all classes. It's the time when we "seal" in all this goodness — I always encourage students to take this sense of inner peace with them out into the world. Show compassion. Be a yogi on and off the mat!

All Yogis love this pose!  Ahhhhh -- the end of class, the final escape, the deep uncensored collapse into an abyss of bliss.  My above mentioned student loves this pose the very best!  Yes, she craves the fast stuff but what she really needs, wants and comes for is permission to just TRUST, let go and let body/mind to heal, find balance and for a few precious moments to simply surrender to the beauty of the moment.

Namaste'
Cindy