What is the Relationship Between Being Uptight and Happiness?

What is the connection between tightness, uptighness and happiness?

The definition of uptight is: 

1.     Nervous or worried and tending to become upset about something that does not make other people upset

2.     Unable or unwilling to relax and express feelings openly : too concerned about behaving in a socially proper way

We can do yoga practices that reveal to us where we are resisting happiness.  Once we are made aware of our tightness and uptightness, we can begin to let go.   ~ Sharon Gannon and David Life

Zoom Classes Online

Join Me On Zoom. Here’s How It Works.

First, I want to apologize to all of you who experienced difficulty signing on to my Zoom classes this past Saturday.  I had warned everybody that I was going to put a password requirement on future meetings because of the New York Times article on “Zoombombing.” 

As I created the meetings for the week of 9th through the 14th, I added the password requirement.  What I didn’t realize is that it converted any meeting I had previously set up to require a password.  I’m still learning this technology, as all of you are, too. 

Going forward, I will use the same ID# 653 503 3880 and the password will be in my newsletter.

If you ever have any difficulty signing in, please text me.  If you don’t have my phone number, email me (now) to get it.  (It is listed in the bottom of all of my e-mails.) While I can usually see and answer a text at the beginning of class, I don’t check emails until later. 

How to Join a Class:

• Download Zoom and create a free account. After you do that, click “Join a Meeting.”  You will need my Meeting ID# and Password to join.  (see above)

• If this is your first time, sign on early to get familiar with the set-up.

• There are three things you have control over:  your microphone, your video feed and how you see your screen.

• Microphone:  You can turn your microphone on or off.  Leave it on in the time before class officially starts to talk to anyone on the screen.  But, please mute yourself once class has started.  If your microphone is on during class, anytime you make a noise, your screen will be the one everyone else sees.  You may unmute yourself at anytime to ask a question.  Alternatively, there is a chat box that you can type into.  I usually do not see the chat box during class.  Chat is better for general comments, questions or feedback.

• Video:  I know some of you would rather not be seen on screen.  Believe me, there are times I would like to turn my video screen off, too!  You may have reasons to turn your feed off, I get it.  However, I do ask that if you are taking my class that you at least turn your camera on in the beginning to say “hi.”  It is a little weird to have someone watching you and you don’t know who they are.  So, please introduce yourself, say hi and then turn your video off.

• Screen:  Gallery View and Speaker View.  In gallery view, you see everyone who is on the call.  It’s fun to see who you know.  But, if you switch to speaker view, you will see me in a large screen and everyone else will be minimized.  This is probably the screen you want to see.

Before class begins:

• Gather your props.  I recommend 2 blocks, a belt and a blanket.  If you do shoulder stand, you will need 3 – 4 blankets.

• Set up your device or computer approximately 6-8′ away from your mat so I can see your entire pose. This means the edge of your mat should be view able.  Ideally your mat should be horizontal with the long edge running right to left. Please set you mat up square to the camera, rather than at an angle.

• I won’t be able to see you very well if the lighting is too low or if you are silhouetted against a window.

• If you want to practice in private without me seeing you, please introduce yourself or say “hi” first and then turn your video off.

During class:

• Remember that this is a different format than an in-person class. I will try to see as much as I can based on your position to the camera.  However, I will not be able to help students like I could if we were physically together.

• Please take care of yourself! If something is not appropriate for you, please opt out of the pose. If I am not offering a modification that works for you, please feel free to improvise.

After Class

• Stay on for a few minutes after class to chat, if you want.

• Please e-mail me with any questions, comments, concerns or feedback you have.

• Let me know if there any poses, or specific body parts you want to work on in future classes.

Payment

• I am asking for those who can to pay at least $5 per class. Some of you may be in tight circumstances and cannot pay. Others have generously paid more in order to keep these online yoga classes going for themselves and for others. I have been operating on the honor system. These classes are important for the normalcy they bring to our lives. I benefit from the contact with you all as much as you benefit from the yoga I can provide.

• I accept payments from Venmo: @Karin-Eisen, or PayPal: PayPal.me/karineisen. Some prefer to send payments through snail mail: Please e-mail me for my address, or respond to this post in the comments below.

Be patient with me, the technology and with yourself.  This is all new and we are all doing the best we can!    I look forward to seeing you in class.

Anything else?

Yoga and Jet Lag

Sure, yoga can make us stronger and more flexible, but the postures can do so much more for us if we know how to use them.  Each group of poses has a different energy and each pose within that group evokes that energy in very specific ways.  Knowing how to work with the energy of the poses can help you with such things as overcoming jet lag.

Conventional wisdom suggests that for each time zone you cross, it takes one day to adjust.  So, traveling can leave you unable to fall asleep at the right time and/or groggy and lethargic when it is time to get going.

To work with jet lag, it is helpful to know which poses are energizing and which ones are quieting.  This knowledge can help you fall asleep or help clear out your brain fog.  Otherwise, your yoga practice can work against what you are trying to do.  You can also use specific yoga poses to open the hips and relieve the low back which are two other problems associated with travel.

General categories of poses

Sun Salutes are energizing.  Use any variation of Sun Salute, even if you make up your own, to help get you going in the morning or during a mid afternoon slump.  Don’t use them at night, however, as they may stimulate you so much that you have trouble falling asleep.

Standing Poses are grounding and energizing.  They help connect our legs and feet to the ground and to the time and place we are in.  They help us establish pose and presence.

Standing Balancing Poses are focusing and energizing.  If you are truly jet lagged and exhausted, you may find it difficult to balance.  In that case, work on Standing Poses and your core and then see if your balance improves.  Or, just give yourself a day or two and try again.

Hand and Arm Balances are energizing and empowering.  They can help you feel strong and confident.  Use these poses to help get your ready to take on your new surroundings. Make sure you warm up before tackling this category of poses.  Do a few sun salutes with some time in Down Dog, at least.  Doing handstands without warming up properly is very hard on your shoulders, wrists and elbows which are not accustomed to holding all of your body weight.

Inversions refer to Head Stand and Shoulder Stand.  These poses are often done together and counter balance each other.  Leave them out if they are not part of your regular practice.  Head Stand is fiery and focusing.  Shoulder Stand is nurturing and relaxing.  Headstand clears your head and dispels extraneous energy which allows you to calm and quiet down in Shoulder Stand.  These two poses together are often prescribed or sleeplessness.  However, it is important to prepare yourself properly before doing Head Stand: do Child’s Pose, Down Dog and Standing Forward Bend to help regulate your blood pressure before going upside down in Head Stand.

Hip Openers are used to relieve the legs and low back from a lot of sitting.  These are poses like Cobbler’s Pose, Seated Wide Legs, Cow Face Pose and the Pigeon variations.

Back Bends are energizing and opening.  Do these in the morning and not at night as even restorative Back Bends can energize you.

Twists are great poses.  They often relieve minor low back discomfort.  But their best attribute is that they change energy.  Twists can release excess energy and calm you down, or they can get the blood flowing and stimulate you.  So, if you are ever unsure of where to start, try a couple of twists and see where that takes you.

Seated Poses are calming and quieting.  They can also help ground you as you are physically closer to the ground than even in standing poses.  They also help get you ready to be more passive and still.  Vertical poses are more stimulating and the closer you get to horizontal, the less stimulating poses can be.  (except in  low back bends like Cobra.  Contracting the spinal muscles against gravity takes an enormous amount of effort and will.)

Forward Bends are introspective and quieting postures.  These are best done at night to get ready for bed.

Restorative Poses can help calm you down.  Travelling can be invigorating and exciting, but often it stimulates our adrenaline.  We need to lower our adrenaline levels to help get to sleep.  This category of poses can help you do that.  And you don’t need to carry a whole host of yoga props with you.  Our hotel room will often have extra blankets, pillows or chair cushions that you can use to prop yourself up pretty comfortable.

Pranayama also can help you get energized or relaxed.  In general, focusing on the inhalation is stimulating and energizing; focusing on the exhalation is more calming and quieting.  Most people are familiar with alternate nostril breath as in Nadi Shodhana Pranayama.  Breathing in this way is very balancing to the nervous system.  However, there are two similar forms of digital pranayama (This is where you use your fingers, or digits, to open and close the nostrils.  In Surya Bhedna Pranayama, you place your hand in front of your nose, as you do in Nadi Shodhana, but you only inhale through the right nostril, while closing off the left and exhale through the left nostril, while closing off the right.  YOu can repeat this for a half a dozen rounds or whatever seems appropriate and comfortable to you.  Surya is the sun channel and like the sun it signifies daytime and activity.  In Chandra Bhedna Pranayama, you use your hand again, as you do in Nadi Shodhana, but this time you close off the right as you inhale through the left.  Then you close off the left and exhale through the right.  Repeat for a few rounds.  Chandra is the moon channel and like the moon it signifies darkness, quiet, night time and sleep.

Now that you know the energy of the postures, you can make up your own routines that help you adjust to the time zone you are in.  Or, just help you feel more present and calm even if you are not changing time zones while traveling.

Poses that are energizing

Use these poses to get you going in the morning even when your native time zone is telling you it’s time to sleep.  You can also use these poses to recharge when you are experiencing that mid-afternoon slump.

Sun Salutes
Standing Poses
Standing Balancing Poses
Handstand
Arm Balances
Back Bends – particularly Bow and Wheel
Twists – particularly standing twists
Pranayama – focus on the inhale 

Poses that are quieting

Travel takes you out of your normal routine.  This makes your more alert and outwardly focused. These poses will help you turn more inward and quiet your nervous system.

Seated Poses
Forward Bends
Inversions – such as Head Stand, Shoulder Stand and Legs-up-the-Wall
Twists – particularly seated or supine twists
Restorative Poses – although sometimes restorative poses allow you to catch your second wind
Pranayama – focus on the exhale

Hip opening and low back postures

Lying Hand to Big Toe Pose – straight up, out to the side and twist
Quad stretches
Back Bends – especially Cobra, Bridge and Camel
Twists – Any: standing, seated or supine
Pigeon – and any of its variations
Seated Poses – Cobbler, Seated Wide Legs, Revolved Seated Tree
Pranayama – equal inhalation and exhalation

A note about props

I always take my yoga stuff with me when I travel. I have a thin travel mat that does not take up too much room in my suitcase.  It is not very cush, but sometimes I can place it over a rug, or use a towel to pad my knees, or whatever.  I also travel with two thin (3″) blocks and a 6′ yoga strap.  Anything else I need, I usually try to be creative with what I have in my hotel or Air BnB.   I did take my Awesome Toes with me on this trip.  They feel really good after walking around all day!

How to make progress in your yoga practice.

The Two Wings of Practice

Students often ask me how long it is going to take them to be able to achieve a certain pose or goal they have set for themselves.  The short answer comes from Patthabi Jois and goes like this: “Practice, practice and all is coming.”

There is the literal interpretation of this aphorism that most yoga students want to believe and that is to keep practicing and you will achieve your goal.

However, Patthabi Jois does not say to keep practicing and your results are guaranteed.  By telling us to keep practicing he lets us know that wisdom can be accrued and through wisdom, discrimination.  The teachings of the Bhagavad Gita tell us to practice for the sake of practice but not be attached to the fruits of our practice.  It also warns us to not be attached to inaction.  This means that you are not guaranteed that if you practice a pose repeatedly that you will be able to achieve it.  It also means that if you don’t practice regularly, progress will be elusive.

How do you practice?  One way is to come to public yoga classes.  These are great, but you are at the whim of practicing whatever the teacher wants you to practice, not what you as an individual might need.  Also, sometimes teachers avoid certain poses for a variety of reasons.  Those poses might be beneficial for you.

It is important to practice with a teacher who doesn’t practice with you, but one who watches over you and corrects your postures, someone who has walked the path before you and knows the pitfalls and the problems.  We are blind to our own mistakes and sometimes we think we are doing something, but we are often, but not always, mistaken.  I know this has been true for me and the corrections I have received from a knowledgeable teacher have transformed my practice in a minute.  Practicing the same mistake over and over can take years to figure out and may even cause injury.

To make progress in your yoga postures, it is also important to develop your own practice.  Originally, yoga was taught individually because everybody has different needs due to their physical structure, habits and restrictions.  I find that I need to do certain poses, stretches, strengthening exercises, or particular  actions every day as part of my own "physical therapy" program.  This would be beneficial for all serious yoga students.  It takes a lot of discipline to do this, but it doesn’t have to take that much time; 10 to 20 minutes may be enough.  You may be surprised that getting to your mat can be hard, but once you are on your mat 20 minutes can easily stretch into an hour!

By practicing on your own, you start to find out what you don’t know.  You may start to realize that if no one is telling you what to do with your leg, foot or arm, you suddenly realize that it could be in a myriad of positions.  This is good!  The next time you take a class, you will pay more attention to those details that you thought you knew.

Just as a bird needs two wings to fly straight, you need two wings to your practice.  Working on your own is one wing of practice, the other is to practice with a knowledgeable teacher.    These are the two wings complement each other and help you make progress on the path of yoga.