Fire of Transformation - "Tapas"

"Yoga tries to find the balance between what you can change (tapas) and what you cannot (ishvarapranidhana)." - Leslie Kaminoff 

Tapas is thought of as the inner fire of transformation, corresponding with the fire in our gut known as "Agni" which aids in digestion and transforms food into it's two essences: waste and nutrition.  The root, "tap" means "to burn" and typically refers to the deeply unconscious mental stuff that gets in our way of experiencing total love and lack of suffering.

I like to think of it as the great motivator, that fire under the rump that gets you up when you are feeling lethargic, doubtful or despondent. Tapas is like the kick in our existential pants that fuels us to recreate ourselves as something greater, stronger and more empowered. It is that part of us that was stoked the first time we decided to try yoga asana. It is that part of us that burns when we realize that what we have been doing wasn't serving us well and that heat which causes us to search for a better solution.

Long-Exposure of a Bottle Rocket

Tapas is the participation component of our yoga practice. It is the activity of getting onto the mat, of actually doing yoga, of thinking in terms of yoga ("I don't need to react to that driver who just gave me the finger, because that will not improve the love of this situation, and will only fuel my lack of love."), of living the yoga lifestyle.

It works with all of the things in our lives that we choose to contribute to - our choices around food, lovers, family, friends, the work we do, the things we spend our money on, the things we do with our free time, the way we speak to ourselves and others. It affords us a sense of control and contribution as we learn to truly see how little we do have control over in our lives - the people we love and who love us, our karmic debts, our genetic dispositions and some personality traits, time, space and taxes.

It requires the austerity to change a habit, which is the most stubborn behavior to change! Some translations even include "austerity" as a way to describe tapas. It is part of the second limb of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras  which describes practices for relationships with others, known as the Niyamas. 

An Exercise in Cultivating Tapas 

For the next 14 days, wake up each morning and write down or say aloud the first three things that come to mind when you ask yourself: "What am I grateful for today?" Do not miss a day.

If you don't do this rpactice as soon as you wake up, make sure you do it before you go to bed as a way to create a proactive habit. 

Remember that it is the 'doing' that is instigated by this inner heat, not the 'thinking-about-doing'! 

Celebrating the Subtle: Divine is in the Details

On my last day in Israel, I was at a 2-story commercial shopping mall with a few Israeli friends. My friend Adi suggested that I check out a store called Zara because, "every Israeli girl has at least one thing from there." I took her word for it, and in the end, bought an outfit. As I took my bag and we made our way out of the store, she said something to me in Hebrew which I hadn't heard yet. At this point, I'd been in Israel for about 3 weeks and was able to decipher basic conversational phrases, but this one was new.

She asked me what Americans say when someone buys something. I must have stared blankly at her, because she repeated the question again. "Um...we don't say anything to each other," I replied. I suppose this statement says it all...

In her tradition (she is Jewish Israeli), when someone buys something - clothes, a special gift, stuff for the house, etc.- they will say to that person, "tithadshi" in Hebrew which doesn't exactly translate to our English language, but this is like saying, "congratulations on your new thing."

This was so rich to me! What a rich culture! Israel isn't exactly a capitalist country, and given it's dense history of being thwarted geo-politically, economically and culturally, the citizens aren't all together wealthy. But they honor what they have, and they have traditions to keep this idea alive in the current generation.

I remember learning a traditional African welcome song from my drumming teacher who was native to Papau-New Guinea, Africa. He told me that in his country, they have a blessing for everything - even when someone spills water on the ground, it is seen as an offering to those who've died.

What if instead of cringing at the thought of waking up at 7am to take a new yoga class, or clenching your teeth in that hamstring stretch, we saw these things as opportunities in being alive?

What if the next time you come to class and find a sub in place of your favorite teacher, you celebrate the chance to explore your practice under a different lens, with a different tour guide? What if even our loses are offerings?

What would your day feel like, if everything you experienced was something to be congratulated about?

Mazol tov!

 and Namaste.

Vision: What are you bringing into the future?

Try this:

Write out what your life will look like. Get specific - qualities of the people in it, your attitudes, how you look, what you wear, what other people look and feel like, the kind of work you do, how you spend your time, what you spend your money on, how much you travel and commute, the kind of conversations you have with other people... Stop when you find that you've got the vision in your mind summed up well.

The next day, reread what you wrote from day 1 and this time, walk yourself through all of the events that would need to happen to make that vision happen - no holds barred, no such thing as an impossible feat. This time, write out the actions you saw yourself taking to get there.

Intention: A Dialogue with the Divine

It's been a solid month since my last post and I am excited to report that this hiatus was a consequence of some very exciting globe trotting! I spent the better part of June trekking around the great country of Israel - touring, learning, laughing, being in community and teaching yoga to new friends.

While there, I was privileged to experience the holiest day of the Judaic week, Shabaat, at the holiest site on the planet,  the Western Wall in Jerusalem. We arrived at sunset, walking across the city, through the great stone gates that led to the interior Old City of Jerusalem where I was met by an uproar of voices. As I descended a broad stone stairwell that led to the main floor where crowds congregated in modest clothing and head coverings. As I scanned the panorama of ancient architecture among sunset backdrop, I witnessed a few thousand people gathered in two seas split by a thin partition - men to the left and women to the right. There was so much movement! I stood in a kind of surreal awe at this mass of people in prayer of all kinds - dancing, singing, swaying, reading holy texts, repeating scripture, standing in silence, crying. (This remains an ineffable moment for me, but I'm doing my best to illustrate some sense of it for you here.)

Standing among thousands of people in their most sacred space, listening to the clamor of individual prayers coming together in waves of sound, I started to unravel the yogic idea of intention, and it's power. 

Without hesitation, I will tell you that I am not a religious person and I do not pray. That being said, I understand the desire to have a dialogue with something great and, albeit, divinely more "put together" than myself. I get that prayer is like intention, with a religious twist.

When I make an intention, I am creating a dialogue with myself in order to realize a more integrated version of who I am, my practice, or some other aspect of my life. Focusing awareness to draw up an idea or vision of what we want to see in our lives allows our quieter parts a chance to tune in to this idea, grasp it, and begin to create it.

Standing within the walls of a city that's been revered for it's holy antiquity and fought over for centuries, I felt at home with this sense of reverie and conviction. Often, I am beside myself as I learn how the body works as an integrated system, and that I am consciously aware of this inner working. The kotel symbolizes for the Jewish people the last tangible structure of their most significant house of god, their temple. They stand before it in honor, in worship and on Shabaat, in prayer.

It is commonplace for a person to come to the kotel  with a small piece of paper inked with a prayer. They press these notes inside cracks in the wall as a way to communicate directly with god. People come to this place from all over the planet, to dialogue with their holiest and most sacred.

As I walked through the stone corridors that led the way to my hostel, the echoes of mass prayer trailed behind in a blurry kind of bass. During very quiet moments, I feel this kind of reverberation in my own body, in the chambers of my throat as I chant and within the walls of my lungs as I breath. Inside of me their is a city whose people are reverent and history, antiquated -like Jerusalem.

Take the Brain Out: How Hip-Hop is like Yoga

I love hip-hop. Not the trash on pop-radio, not Kanye West or any rapper whose subject matter is money or women, and definitely not the stuff that's played in clubs. I love real Hip-hop - drum machines, stabby guitar lines, samples, scratching, intelligent lyricism, word play, cross references, subtext, collaborations.

KRS One, who to many is considered the father of hip-hop, defines the genre as "more than music," and challenges that it's a philosophy as well as a lifestyle. In his track "Hip Hop Lives ft. Marley Marl," he explains that, "hip is the knowledge/hop is the movement/hip and hop is intelligent movement or relevant movement."

Hip-hop is yoga...it's vinyasa. It's a philosophy that encourages mindfulness, of staying relevant and moment-specific, of speaking from the heart to communicate clearly, of moving with meaning and standing for a cause. Like yoga, hip-hop culture demands participation, self-actualization, creativity and respect.

Friday night I had the luxury of seeing one of my favorite hip-hop artists at the El Rey Theatre in Hollywood. I've followed Aesop Rock for over 10 years, have loved every one of his albums, and his newest is no exception. His wordsmithery is impressive and calls into question the vernacular finesse and diction of so many of his peers.

Aesop Rock released his first album in over 5 years a few days before I saw him at the El Rey. One of his tracks off the new album, entitled "Homemade Mummy," instructs listeners how to mummify your cat. Give it a go and you may hear what I did - a deeply yogic subtext paired with a verse that educates.

"Take the brain out/keep the heart in..."


cheers,
niki

p.s. if you're not into hip-hop but are open enough to check out the link above, keep this in mind: I love this guy because he challenges your listening skills. Like a busy brain in a yoga class, tune in and listen. Adjust as needed. Repeat.

Principles of Alignment

"Come what may"

Practicing yoga offers us opportunities to open beyond our habits of normalcy.
Working within the breath-body we connect to our mental, physical and emotional bodies and this offers us opportunities to expand our perceived limitations, which ultimately offers us to experience a truer quality of our life.
In order to do this, agreements must be settled internally.

First, a commitment to the cause [surrender/Ishvara Pranidhana]. Then, a willingness, a real willingness to move in this direction [fire/tapas]. Lastly, but hardly the very least, an agreement to be honest with yourself [honesty/santosha] about the process, the expectations, the grievances, the desires, the complaints, the reasons, the excuses, the habits and the fear.

Whether you practice yoga postures or you don't, moving beyond discomfort in any area of your life is first and foremost a private decision that must embody these 3 elements.

Today, as I move toward limits of normalcy in pursuit of what is natural, I am reminded of this mantra:
Come what may.


may we all move with such grace and softness.


enjoy the rain Los Angeles.

With love,
niki

Dis-solving

Tonight I need to talk about letting go.

According to the Ashtanga philosophy, there is a deeper aspect of existence that can be unveiled through the practice of yoga and it's 8-fold path. This path unfolds with an ever widening scope of exercises we practice in order to achieve mental clarity.

The 1st of these layers is called Yama [pronounced ya-mah] and includes this idea of letting go. The sanksrit word is Aparigrapha [pronounced Ah-par-ee-grah-ha] which literally translates to non-hoarding.

Off the mat, I've been struggling with letting go of a feeling before it transforms into a mood - or worse, an attitude. Someone will say something that I will take the wrong way, and even if the mis-communication is resolved right away, I hold onto the feelings that were mistakenly caused by assuming.

On the mat, I'm sometimes hard on myself - judging and comparing myself against things that aren't happening in that moment...stuff that I've held onto. This, of course, takes away from the clarity of breathing and movement. When I remind myself about the practice of aparigrapha, it is easier to let go of all the ill-feelings. I have come to learn that these are just emotional reactions and can be left as such; they do not need to turn into moods or attitudes, and that they are often times mere transient states, fleeting sentiments; that they are as easy let go of as an exhale.