10,000 hours

10,000 hours

This is a number that many experts use when referring to mastery. Research says it is not only the hours that are dedicated to the skill, but also the elapsed time in-between that makes a difference. In the book, "Genius within Us" author David Shenk says that after studying the process of mastery, ten years and ten thousand hours- no matter what the domain- seems to be the start of mastery. This equates to three hours a day. Just the other day a friend of mine who is a student was referring to a teacher at Empowered Yoga. He was commenting on her development as a teacher. I told him it is a simple equation, passion + practice = mastery. I told him that if the person is passionate and practice is steady then mastery can be achieved. The part of David Shenk's research that I find so important is the importance of lapsed time between dedicated study time. It is the digestion time that allows for the skill to soak into our being. I always tell our students in teacher training that the only thing they are lacking is teaching hours. Is there a skill you would like to master? If so are you putting in your time towards mastery?

The Sound of Your Life

"Out of silence emerges the sound of your life". During certain periods of my life, I work with quotes. This is one I am working with now. I am at the end of a 90 day challenge involving sitting daily in meditation so this quote is something easy to work with. Meditation is a pretty misunderstood word. Meditation and focus are synonymous. We meditate all of the time, especially when we drive. If you don't concentrate on the road you get in an accident or you get a ticket. In the process of seated meditation you concentrate on your body and breathing. You are concentrating on yourself. Seems a bit narcissistic at first yet all of this hinges on your intention. For most people, meditation is a process of relieving stress while experiencing joy and self discovery. The process is learning to listen inwardly to the sound of your life. Within this process you are taught the importance of being gentle and not judging yourself. Most of us can be hard on ourselves and judgmental. If you get quiet and sit still, what is your experience? For me spending time each day to be quiet and do nothing has become a profound practice. It has gotten me in touch with the sound of my life and the direction it is taking. We have beginner meditation every Friday in Wilmington if you would like to learn how to meditate.

Evolutionary Impulse by Andrew Cohen

Identifying with the Evolutionary Impulse

The evolutionary process is going somewhere. And now, maybe for the first time in history, we can decide with more conscious awareness where it's going. But our ability to do that depends entirely upon who we understand ourselves to be. What part of our self are we identifying with? Is it the personal psychological ego, or the conditioned habits and beliefs of our culturally created self-sense? Or is it the deeper, more authentic self that we discover when we awaken to the impulse to evolve? When we make the effort to identify more with the vertically moving energy of the impulse to evolve than with the horizontal pull of the personal ego and cultural self, everything changes. We transcend the enormous weight of our own predetermined conditioning and open ourselves up to the liberating experience of that part of the cosmos that is trying to evolve through us in every moment. We make ourselves available to that powerful telos, and when we do we become profoundly transformed. Now our attention has shifted from the conditioned past to the ever-ecstatic immediacy of the possible,here and now.

Andrew Cohen

How Yoga Works (Part III)

In my last post we looked at two different situations. The two situations were easy to write because I was writing about myself. I have been the ideal and I have been the not so ideal. As time moves along and I continue to practice yoga I become wiser and more aligned with what is skillful and what is unskillful action. Skillful promotes peace and unskillful acerbates confusion.

It is really important that we take a look at how our sleep, time management, nutrition and movement choices play a role in our life and how we think. We only practice Hatha yoga for 60-90 minutes on a mat and the average student shows up twice a week. At some point within our yoga practice the question, “how am I living?” becomes a dominant question. Do we carry an undernourished, over caffeinated, under-slept and stressed out body to the mat or are we taking care of ourselves?

I always say that at some point, something has got to go! The lifestyle has to change or you just have to quit coming to yoga because the pain of confronting your lifestyle over and over again becomes too exhausting. Unfortunately most people choose to discontinue the yoga. Only 10% of people who try yoga continue past one year.

Many people find this depressing but the fact is that it is more comfortable to stay stuck in habits and unconscious living. It's easy to make excuses about why you can not continue yoga. After fifteen years of teaching I have truly found a great appreciation of the understanding that as human beings we ourselves are our biggest obstacle.

This is one of the ways that yoga works. We learn to look at our own mind. How is our life manifesting within our body? This becomes the very ground upon which we can draw some conclusions. If we continue the way we are living what are the predictable mistakes and outcomes? If we courageously change some things where does that point the direction of our life? How does our courageous redirection alter the lives of those around us?

How Yoga Works (part two) Two Situations

Ideal situation

You wake with gentle zen chimes (this really makes a difference for me, available on itunes yet they also sell Zen alarm clocks) from a good night sleep where you were predominantly resting in theta and delta waves. You wake up with sufficient time to prepare for work. You get out of bed and are not rushing so you are calmly moving about your day and are now in alpha waves. If you drink caffeine you have a small dose of just one cup which will bring you into beta waves.

You move throughout your morning and enjoy a tempered drive to work listening to something that promotes relaxing. Throughout your work day you take momentary breaks to stand up and stretch your arms overhead (this severely disperses compressional forces on lower spine and increase blood flow promoting energy). It only takes 30 seconds to stand and stretch. This also helps reset your attention span.

You keep a glass of water next to your desk and drink water because you realize that dehydration is one of the easiest ways to misconstrue hungry and promote lower energy levels. You shift into beta waves as needed throughout the day yet maintain a constant foundation of alpha waves as you move through your tasks with great efficiency.

You practice mindful breathing throughout the day which helps you maintain a sense of calmness yet alertness. Your take a walk at lunch or engage in some light reading and enjoy a healthy lunch. You go back to work and by mid afternoon you eat another healthy snack which will help prevent energy crash. You leave work and exercise before coming home. Once home you spend time with your family and have a healthy dinner with possibly one glass of wine without the TV on. You finish the night sipping tea and reading which helps shift your gears down from alpha-theta-delta.

Not so ideal

You wake up to loud buzzer from alarm with not a lot of time to get to work. You just shifted from delta or theta right into beta and skipped alpha. You move quickly to get ready for work and drink 2-3 cups of coffee. You drive to work in a rush listening to music or something that aids in maintaining beta mind.

Get into work and start working feeling overwhelmed by the day tasks maintaining beta mind. You don’t drink any water pushing you into a dehydrated state. Due to the feeling of being overwhelmed you never get up at your desk till lunch. You have spent a large majority of your morning in beta mind. For lunch you eat something not so healthy loaded in high glycemic carbs and saturated fats. Your blood sugars drop an hour or so after lunch and you are tired and bouncing from alpha to theta with brief periods of beta.

To stay awake you go for more coffee or a candy bar. This helps you make it through the day yet your ability to focus is poor due to the brain waves. There is no exercise after work and instead grab a few beers. You get home and have the munchies so you eat something unhealthy. You eat too much because your blood sugars are off from too much alcohol and dehydration because you drank no water throughout the day. This puts you into a food coma on the couch where you pass out. You wake up around midnight and make your way up to bed where falling back to sleep can be difficult due to the fact that your brain waves are confused as to what part of the day it is. You eventually fall asleep yet you wake up periodically throughout the night depriving yourself from ever really spending time healing in theta and delta.

How Yoga Works (part one)

I was teaching in Charlotte this weekend at the Laughing Buddha and during one of the sessions, a student asked “How does yoga work?” I recently read a book entitled “How Yoga Works” and I cannot recommend it enough to anyone that has a yoga practice or is looking for a reason to take up the practice. I will take the next several blogs to explore this question from a different perspective than what the book focuses on.

Before we dive in, it is important to understand the etymology of the word yoga. The word means union. It is a study of polarities and it indicates two forces becoming one. It denotes the idea of finding balance between these two forces so that they can become one action. First let’s look at the mind with regards to the study of yoga.

Your body is made of trillions of cells. These cells are called neurons and they communicate with each other through electrochemical processes. The human brain has approximately 100 billion neurons. A frequency is the speed at which they are traveling. Brain waves are characterized in four different frequencies:

Beta- Fastest impulses at 13-40 cycles per second. This is associated with our normal waking state. Beta helps in logical thinking, analysis and active attention function. Stress and neurotic behaviors could throw the frequency to continuos elevated beta levels. The busier your mind the more beta waves are omitted.

Alpha- 7-13 cycles per second. This occurs during daydreaming, fantasizing and creative visualization. This is often associated with a deeply relaxed state and meditation. This is the state of mind where the mind can be calmly attentive. This is where the mind is less neurotic and more open.

Theta 4-8 cycles per second. Theta is associated with intuition, otherwise known as 'sixth sense' and allows us to access our subconscious. It is activated during deep states of meditation and dream sleep. Theta is also associated with creative thinking, and allows us to tap into our inner genius.

Delta- .5-4 cycles per second produced in deep sleep

At any given time throughout your day your brain is omitting one of these signals. We can look at these mind sets like the gears of a car. First gear is Delta, second is Theta, Alpha is Third and Beta is Fourth. Our bodies have evolved and developed so that they can shift gears throughout the appropriate states and times of the day. When we are healthy we use all of the gears for appropriate situations. If we are going to talk about how yoga works understanding brain waves is critical. In the next blog we will look at two different situations.

Yoga in a Bottle

Until the onset of electricity 100 years ago, human beings went to bed after sun down and arose at sunrise. We slept 10-12 hours a day, ate foods from the earth, walked everywhere or rode a horse. There were no tv's, ipods or emails. Life was more organic and slower, allowing us to spend more time being and inhabiting the fullness of our name as human beings. It is important to realize this is our evolutionary genetics and the way we have been living for thousands upon thousands of years. Fast forward to the 21st century, our worlds have become lightening fast. Both parents work to maintain the American lifestyle. Processed food and caffeinated beverages have become a staple in the American diet. The normal chores that are required in order to operate a household, and a family, become something that happens at night, shortening our sleep and increasing our overall workload. Things move at lightening speed with cell phones, emails and modern day efficiencies of travel. All of this can leave us under slept, over processed and in many ways out of touch. We take on the name "Human Doing" and throw our evolutionary clocks out of whack!

These are facts in the 21st century. American life is not going to slow down. If we allow ourselves to speed up with it we will find ourselves in the middle of a speeding tornado, missing our life and potentially falling prey to the three D's: dissatisfaction, depression and disease. The famous Tibetan Lama Chogyam Trungpa would often say, "where there is speed many times you find struggle". In my own life I now notice when I am moving too fast, I have developed the practice of pausing. Many times I discover a feeling of unease and struggle when I pause. A decade ago, I began the practice of Hatha Yoga to help me deal with the speed of life. Hatha Yoga is the exercise system that involves movement and breathing exercises that help bring the nervous system into a greater state of balance. Eventually, I created a style and approach to Hatha Yoga, Empowered Yoga. Our methodology is a three step process that begins with stabilizing your attention on your body and breathing. From the process of stabilizing yourself, you can't help but notice the second step which is resting in a feeling of calmness and clarity. As your practice becomes more consistent, the third step happens which is the arising of wisdom. You begin making better choices that help you become more skillful in working with the speed of the 21st century. Empowered Yoga has made a big difference in my life!

Recently, I was turned onto a product called Suntheanine. Within Suntheanine is a natural occurring amino acid called L-theanine, found mostly in teas. Clinical research suggests that 50mg - 200 mg Suntheanine naturally stimulates activity in the brain known as alpha waves, which are associated with a relaxed but alert mental state. Within 15 minutes of ingesting Suntheanine my wife and I noticed that we both felt calmer. We were doing chores around the house and we both felt more focused. Since then, we have been incorporating Suntheanine into our nutritional habits and have noticed less feelings of speediness and a greater sense of clarity. This product is like yoga in a bottle! The world needs yoga and if someone can get that yoga attitude in a bottle then maybe they will find their way into Empowered Yoga.

The Antidote

This is where the practice of yoga steps in. Yoga is the science and art of steadying the mind in this moment. We can do this on a yoga mat or in a seated mediation posture. I use both techniques yet find the seated meditation practice to be a more solid ground to understand and work with my mind.

The Hatha Yoga practice serves as the physical exercise systems that strengthens and purifies the body while cultivating a mind that is steady and familiar with breathing and the body. The Hatha Yoga practice is means to bring us into deeper states of stillness and to prepare us to sit in meditation.

In meditation practices, you are not shutting your mind down or attaining a state of non-thinking, rather, you are learning to make friends with and understand how your mind works. And this becomes the very ground upon which you can make wise decisions on the direction your life is taking.

When you sit and get still and settled. It becomes a place where you can begin to see which voices are driving your life and which direction you are headed. Our lives carry with them a lot of momentum. The practice helps slow down and cultivate a heightened state of awareness--intimacy with ourselves. It also helps us begin to develop a relationship with the presence inside of us that can see and feel thought and emotion from a third party perspective.

My friend and mentor, David Nichtern, calls meditation a burn. He says that when we sit we can burn up our karmas. We can begin to rewire our brain and we can cultivate qualities that can help change our relationship to life.

This process is challenging. The momentum our lives possess is like a river that is carrying us. In the beginning it can be like swimming up a stream. Daily practice and a relentless commitment are required.

Karma

Last night I was watching an interview with Drew Brees who is the

quarterback for the New Orleans Saints. He said, "I believe in karma:

what goes around comes around". He was referring to his team's hard

work attributing to their undefeated 13-0 record.

Karma has become a widely used word and now we even are hearing it on Sports Center.

Karma means energy. There are many ways to understand Karma and there

are numerous different takes on the word and its meaning. It is a word

that originated in eastern philosophy. Many people think of the past when they hear the word karma.

In order to understand karma, we need to begin with the present moment and then take a 360 degree view. I get quiet and still and I hone into this moment. How does it feel? How does my body feel? How does my mind feel? How is my life going? What

is going on at this very moment?

Whatever my observations are I find they are a result of my past thoughts and actions. The way I feel has to do with how I take care of my body on a day to day basis. My view of this moment or attitude has to do with the way I am thinking. Considering the average person has 60,000 thoughts and over 95% of them are reoccurring it is safe to say that our thinking is conditioning. We meet this moment with the lenses of the past. It is our parents, the churches we went to, the neighborhood we grew up in, our friends and all of our experiences that paints the texture of our present moment awareness.

Over the past two decades neuroscience has given this a name: neuroplasticity. This is the science of how the brain gets wired. We think a thought and the more we repeat this thought the stronger it becomes. This would explain why we tend to think the same way over and

over again. It would also explain why we can have a hard time changing and

why our country and world at large is in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction.

We sincerely want one thing yet we are stuck with a past prison that is rooted in repetitive patterns. We want to break free from our conditioning and be dynamic, fresh and positive everyday yet we find it impossible to change our behaviors. We tend to let go

of things we need to hold onto and hold onto the things that we need to let go

of. As we move along with life we become harder and harder and less flexible while the gap between our life and the life we want to live gets broader and broader.

Am I depressing you? I don't mean to yet there is a way out......will handle that next week in my next blog

Boston

I spent this past weekend up in Boston teaching at Metrowest Yoga. Boston is a mature yoga community and they are pretty serious about their yoga. The weekend started with a three hour intensive with a discussion on what it meant to be empowered and concluded Sunday with a discussion on what it meant to live an Empowered Life. The group was energized and their thoughts were sound and provoking.

Sunday, I read a quote by Carl Jung. The quote was, "the greatest influence on our own life and the life of children is the unlived life of our parents". Those that spoke up were parents and shared their ideas of raising children. Towards the end of the discussion, I presented a different view, "we are all children here....how has your life reflected this quote?" We had to get moving and begin a Hatha yoga practice so we never really got a chance to discuss. Maybe this blog will get some discussion going?

When I contemplate this quote I can immediately look at it two ways (although there are numerous ways of viewing it). The first, how am I perpetuating the unlived life of my parents? Second, what part of their unlived life has influenced me to be different and to go in a different direction? It reminds me of the Buddhist lessons on karma. Karma is energy. The teachings of karma are the teachings of cause and effect.

Because karma has become a fashionable word these days you will often hear people say, "That is your karma". A more accurate understanding would be this is happening right now because of karma. Your karma is the sum total of everything you have thought and experienced up until this very moment of your life.

There is no better way to understand karma than to sit still, get quiet and notice where you are right here and right now in this very moment in your life. Our lives are truly the sum total of all past thoughts and deeds. For me the whole point of practicing Yoga is to get still and pay attention non-judgmentally to how we are framing this moment of our life.

Sit with it long enough, we can literally feel our whole life narrow down to this very moment. This is a very courageous thing do to. It can also become the very ground upon which we can awaken to a new direction or reconfirm the direction our life is headed.

If you do have children a worthy contemplation is how is your unlived life affecting your children--come on Boston yogis and yoginis what do you think? We never finished this discussion.

Intention

It is a regular practice of Empowered Yoga to establish an intention for your practice or for your day. The purpose of this practice is to pause and get in touch with where we are.

Sometimes people will refer to another person by saying, “they are so lost because they don’t know where they are going”. I would like to rephrase that by saying, “someone is lost when they don’t know where they are” Goal setting focuses on what you want the future to be whereas intention setting focuses on what you would like to cultivate within this moment. Both practices are important.

Many times when I pause to get in touch I realize that I am not in touch—many times leaning into the future. This realization gets me back in touch. It refocuses me on what I am doing. For me this practice has evolved off the mat. Sometimes I will ask myself before walking into a room or into a meeting, “what is my intention for this next moment of my life”? What would I like to cultivate?

This practice has afforded me the opportunity to get in touch with the direction my life is taking and how my present actions are leading to some future outcome. This practice has turned me into a more intentionally focused person.

I find the more I can pay attention to the present the more my future becomes what I wish for.

Who blew out the Flame?

This is a blog I wrote for a www.florianvilla.com

If you are using term “burnout” then you are indicating that at one time, the flame was lit. The question is, who blew out the flame? If you sit with the question, the answer is not too hard to find–you did. It is a painful realization yet it is true one. This brings us to the three characteristics of truth: it stings, it cleanses, and it sets you free.

Teachers have come to me over the years to tell me that they feel burned out. In almost every instance I was able to notice a common theme. That common theme was a lack of daily practice which can lead to a busy and untamed mind. Our days are so fast and so scheduled in the 21st century. If we don’t pause daily and practice, our minds get out of control.

The founder of the Shambhala and famous Tibetan Lama Chogyam Trungpa said where there is speed you will normally find struggle. Our practice helps us to slow down, relinquish the word struggle and wake up to this moment. When the mind is not trained, the present moment becomes nothing more then the past replayed and/or we see ourselves reaching for some kind of future fulfillment. The mind is uneasy and is in a state of dis-ease. We lose our sense of vibrancy and our ability to recognize the brilliance around us.

We start to look outside of ourselves, thinking that we need another teacher training, a new workshop, or maybe even a different life. We look in the wrong direction. The solution is not outside of us– it’s inside. This is what we as teachers are fundamentally teaching yet we to fall prey to not taking our own advice. We don’t need to travel to the Himalayas. What we need is to amp up our practice right where we are. Get into class 5 or 7 days in a row. Pick up an old book that previously inspired you and journal. Write down why you teach and get in touch with your intention. This can help you re-light your flame.

Keeping your flame lit is your job as a teacher. When life gets challenging, our teaching and practice can go deeper. If we don’t practice we feel burned out. I learned this early in my career. The answers are really that simple when dealing with burn out. Sit with this message and again remember the three characteristics of truth: it stings, it cleanses, and then it sets you free. Does this message sting?

Paralysis by Analysis

This morning I had coffee with a long time friend of mine that I have lost touch with. His name is Joe. We caught up for a while on the present, then relived the past, and finished up our time together talking about the future. At one point in the conversation, Joe commented that many people get Paralysis by Analysis. I loved this catchy expression and thought I would write about it.

Many times in life we find ourselves analyzing a situation. The ability to look at a situation and break it down is an important process in the brain, and it's one that is required when aiming to live skillfully. What happens though when we find ourselves over-analyzing the past, reliving mistakes, and going beyond what is healthy? We get stuck living in the past. We walk around rigid and tense. By continually reliving this past event we experience paralysis by analysis.

Joe then asked me, "How do you let go? Sometimes my mind is just so crazy". I told him that telling most people to let go is like throwing a child in the pool and telling them to swim-- the child has never been taught to swim nor has the child practiced swimming. Cultivating a mind that can let go is a skilled practice and something that for many of us can only be cultivated through practice.

In my Hatha yoga practice and my running practice I use the principles taught in the Shamatha meditation practice. Shamatha means calm abiding. The practice is simple in explanation yet challenging in application. The idea is to cultivate a present state of mind by anchoring your attention on the steadiness of your eyes, respiration, and body. When thought arises and pulls you away from mental steadiness you simply notice that you have lost your attention. You return back to the eyes, respiration and body.

As you continually return to your present state of mind you begin unwinding the focus on analyzing and the habit you have ingrained within your brain. This is challenging work yet it does work, particularly when practiced on a daily basis. The process of letting go of thought and coming back to the present moment cultivates a mind that can let go. I personally find with this practice that it has before easier and easier to let go. In my next blog I will write about what we are experiencing as we let go.

Running Barefoot

So you read the New York Times best seller Born to Run and the barefoot philosophy makes sense. You go buy the Vibram Five Finger Shoes and kick off the $100 cushioned shoes. You go out for a run and start having visions of running in the Copper Canyons with the Tarahumara runners. You feel joyful and light and are quick to say this is paradigm shifting! Then all of a sudden POP the dream bubble explodes and you feel pain! You come to a screeching halt and in an instinct you become a non-believer. Days later your feet start feeling better and you tell you self--no way am I doing that again. The Vibram get tossed to the back of your closet and your throw back on the coffins, I mean cushioned shoes and go back to your old habits.

Unfortunately this is going to be the reality for most people who give this barefoot running thing a shot. The reason why is very simple. Your foot has been supported for years and anything supported becomes weak. Your feet have had a vacation for a VERY long time. They have been atrophying (weakening) ever since you put shoes on at a young age and started running. Since that day the cushioned shoes allowed you to change the evolutionary way your body was designed to run and the rest of the 206 bones and 640 muscles of the body have followed suit. If you are going to bring your dogs out of retirement and kick the coffins off your feet you need a plan. I began running 6 weeks ago in the Vibram and I would like to share with you some insights from my experience.

Step One--Get the shoes and start wearing them all the time--do some walks in them and start getting in touch with using the balls (fronts) of the feet.

Step Two- If you live in the greater Wilmington area contact Tracy Peal and get a lesson on the Pose Running technique. If you don't live in the Wilmington area go to the Pose Technique website and find a certified coach in your area. http://www.posetech.com/services/TracyStevenPeal.html.

Step Three--Begin running preferably on grass. Start off SLOWLY and work the Pose Technique. If you feel any pain stop and walk and then begin again SLOWLY working the technique. Anytime pain arises stop and walk. The pain is an indicator something is wrong. I have stopped and walked often and each time I begin running again and work the technique the pain goes away.

Summary:

The first week I began Vibram running I ran one mile and then worked up to two miles by the end of the first week. I stayed at two miles at a 9-10 minute pace for the first five weeks. The fifth week I worked up to a three miler. By the end of this week I ran 5 miles and felt great! I have to stop during most runs and walk due to pain in the plantar fascia (bottom of the foot) yet once I walked fifty feet it disperses. I am a supinator in my ankles which means I tend to run on the our edges of my feet. Over the years this has tightened the the medial arch (inside) of my feet. The barefoot running is unlocking the inner arches of my feet and as they unlock the plantar fascia is being stretched and is unlocking. The pain when I am running is an indicator that I have done enough unlocking and need a break. The walking allows some rest and then once I start running again my plantar fascia is willing to endure some more letting go.

As the Inner arches unlock I can feel my shins, thighs and hips begin unlocking--it is truly an amazing process. I have to really pay attention when running which has quieted down the voice I hear when I run. The voice sounds like this, "this sucks, this sucks, this sucks" I am enjoying running more and more and realizing that I was truly born to run. I would love to hear some feedback from others going through this process.

September 22nd 6-8pm

Chris Mac Dougall author of Born to Run and Pose Coach Tracy Peal will be doing a book signing and clinic at www.Trailcreekoutfitters.com

Born To Run

A few months ago, I read a book entitled "Born to Run" by Christopher Mac Dougall. Chris is a former war correspondent and contributing editor for Men's Health. He set out to discover why 8 out of 10 runners are injured each year--he counts himself as one of those 8. His journey takes him from his doctor's offices in Philadelphia to the biomechanics lab of the University of Delaware. He winds up at Harvard's anthropology department and heads out to the West Coast to learn more at Stanford. His journey ends in the Copper Canyons of Mexico for the grand finale of the book and the greatest race the world will never see. I listened to the book and was literally in tears towards the end. Christopher beautifully weaves scientific research into a fun and entertaining story that is not just for runners. It is a story about the human spirit with a triumphant ending and a powerful message.

I picked up this New York Times Best Seller after three people told me about the book in one week. These people told me that Christopher was bringing some of the same information to his readers that I had taught within my movement principles workshop. This book gave me permission to act on what I knew to be true. A little over nine years ago I kicked off the shoes and started a yoga practice. I always thought about running barefoot yet listened to the popular myth that I need shoes to handle compressional forces. Chris's book taught me that I truly did not need them. I started running barefoot (with Fibrum Five Finger Shoes) four weeks ago and it has truly been a paradigm shifting experience for me. In my next blog I will post a recommendation on where to buy the shoes and how to begin the journey of running with the earth instead of on it.

It's just my little toe

My wife and I were at a party this weekend. As I was talking with another guest at the party, I could not help but notice that she was favoring one foot. I asked her what was wrong. She said, "Oh it's nothing--I just broke my little toe." My wife turned to me right away and said, "Shut up--don't say a word." Sara knows the way I think and she is very educated on movement principles herself. She really knows her stuff and understands the independent nature of the human body and mind. I said nothing and just let it go.

Two of the three arches in the foot connect to the little toe. These arches serve to handle compressional forces and absorb shock while standing, walking, running etc. Basically, if you are on your feet, the arches are meant to be working. When the little toe is not functioning, the arches of the feet are

not functioning, and the joints above the foot- such as the ankles, knees, hips, spinal column, etc-are each working even harder and are subject to more compression within each joint.

Most people I speak with don't seem to understand how the body is interdependent and how everything effects everything. I find that it is the tendency of every one's mind, and not just mine, to possess a narrow focus. We have trouble seeing how everything is connected and related.

I would certainly be unaware of this truth if not for the hundreds and thousands of moments of focused attention on my yoga mat. My practice has truly taught me that the smallest adjustment in my foot can adjust my neck or shoulder--it is truly amazing to experience this connection.

Life is very much the same--our thoughts, actions and inaction's within each and every moment will affect the people near us and the world beyond us. We are all living in this cause and effect relationship and there is nothing that is not felt... that is truly something that is worth contemplating.

Living the Ordinary Extraordinary

After last night's class, a student asked me a question that no one has ever asked me before. The student, who was new to Empowered Yoga but not new to spiritual practice, asked me if I had opened up my third eye.

The third eye is where the Hindus respectfully wear the red dot. The third eye is referred to as the Eye of Intuition and is one of the Seven Chakras within the human body. I responded "No, I have not." He looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face and asked, "Well then why do you practice?" I told him that I practice so that I can be a better husband, a better Dad and a nicer person within this world.

I have no aspirations for anything extraordinary--I aspire to live the ordinary life extraordinarily. He smiled, and said that he understood. During over conversation, he told me that he was off to India to study with a guru. It prompted me to share something with him: "I searched for years only to come full circle and realize that what I was looking for was right here. Maybe you will find what you are looking for in India, but maybe it is right here and you are unable to see it." After long pause, he spoke. "Maybe you are right", he said. I replied, "Maybe I am and maybe I am not-- but either way you will find out."

It reminds me of the last chapter in a modern day book that is bound to become a classic. The book is called "Light on Life", by 91-year-old Yoga Master BKS Iyengar. He tells the reader that he spent the majority of his life as a seeker and it is only now that he sees clearly. He urges the reader not to make the same mistake that he has made. Iyengar is asking us to stop looking outside of ourselves and start looking within. Stop thinking that some moment around the corner will complete us. Stop thinking that if our lives were different, they would somehow be complete. This kind of thinking postpones our happiness until the future. One day, we realize that we are old, and that we missed the whole point of life-- this moment is enough, be appreciative to be alive. Enjoy your life now.

It's Not Yoga

It always cracks me up when I hear people say, "That is not Yoga". It gets into the mental constructs that people build in their minds about what something is. This is the way our mind works.

For instance—when we meet someone, we ask questions. As we hear information about them, our minds begin developing a view or picture of the person. We can then make a judgment as to whether or not we like the person, whether the person is someone we want to be around, and if the person is worth our time. If you have never noticed this about your mind then pay attention the next time you meet someone new and watch the way your mind works and builds a construct.

Yoga is no different. If people come in and they have never done yoga then Empowered Yoga becomes their mental construct of what yoga is and should be. Yoga should be heated, have mirrors, and involve intention setting and chanting Om. This becomes their mental construct of yoga. It builds a student’s body and helps deepen Hatha Yoga (physical) practice, yet, many times it leaves a student rigid in belief and thus closes them to possibilities.

The idea behind repeating a sequence or committing to a style is to begin to develop a deeper understanding of reality and their relationship to it. The very nature of reality is fluid and ever changing. In our observation we can begin to realize that we suffer in life because of our rigid mental constructs and beliefs that do not allow us to see the beauty in something or see something that we have seen many times before in a whole new light.

When someone says to me, “That’s not yoga” I understand that they are stuck in a mental construct. In essence, they are admitting that they are not yoga and really don’t understand yoga. Yoga is everything. Yoga encompasses all. Yoga is Life!

Getting out of the Box

Empowered Yoga was founded on a simple yet profound premise—you have the ability to wake up to your life right now. All of our experience is created by our minds. We are primarily responsible for the pain and stress we create in our lives and the lives of those around us. Most of this pain is due to living life on automatic pilot and reacting to life in habitual ways that are ingrained within us from past conditioning. We get caught in a box and the box can suffocate us.

Each of our brains is wired in a unique way. By becoming present and learning to observe our thinking from a non-judgmental standpoint we can begin to see the way we are wired. It is important to observe our reactions from witnessing perspective so that we can come to fully own who we are. If we get caught up in judging ourselves then we risk falling into a dual mindset.

Practice becomes a process of making friends with ourselves and owning all the aspects of who we are. It is by fully owning who we are that life becomes more workable. Our habitual thought patterns become more palpable and this develops the very ground to work with them. When we judge ourselves we never fully own our minds—by judging ourselves we hold ourselves at arms length further perpetuating and ingraining the thoughts.

In order to choose wisely we need to develop awareness. More specifically we need to develop more precision and intimacy with the present moment. It is within this precision that we can learn to identify thought patterns that no longer serve us and create unnecessary suffering within our lives. We can also become aware of thoughts that create and support happiness and joy and learn to invest more attention into these thoughts.

It is in changing the direction of our life that we ultimately begin changing the direction of the lives around us—this is the paradox of personal change. We all would like to see the world change and for things to be more peaceful and more loving. For this to happen we have to begin to work on ourselves. In the words of Gandhi, “Be the change you wish to see within the world”

Becoming empowered begins with a profound realization that you do have moment to moment choices within your life. You don’t have to be a slave to past conditioning. You don’t have to be a victim. You can chose wisely and compassionately to change your life’s direction. All of this can happen by simply making a commitment to pay attention and observe how you are relating to what is happening.

Traveling Man

Over the past three weeks I have been traveling. I was in Italy with my family and then teaching in Costa Rica and Las Vegas for two weeks. All in all I feel very fortunate to be able to step away from business and my family.

With this being said I am very glad to have been given the life I have. I am a home-body and I prefer being at home verses on the road. Occasional trips are fun yet after expereincing three weeks in a row I have had my fill.

I have a lot of compassion and respect for people that have to travel a lot. I was on planes, trains, automoblies and ships. Traveling can really test your patience and show you who you are. We got lost in Italy a few times, I missed a plane in Charlotte and sat next to a guy heading to Las Vegas who sniffled for four straight hours wiping his nose with his hand.

To me these are the greatest tests of yoga--when life is just not going your way. How do you react? Can you discover peace amongst discomfort? I fared pretty well yet I have a long way to go. At times I felt enlightened and at other times I felt like freaking out--isn't that the way life goes?

I will post another blog tomorrow and get back to one a week now that I am home.