yoga - Shinay Tredeau

If you’ve ever felt like “quitting” yoga…

“I want to take a few weeks off from yoga,” she told me, “it’s getting too hard and I leave each class hating myself and hating yoga.”

I looked at her tenderly and replied simply, “Please keep coming to class.”

Here’s what I said to her, more or less. In case you too, have ever felt like you want to “quit yoga.” I see you, you are not alone.

Yoga asana is hard work because we’re literally putting or body into shapes that ask us to use our physical capacity in new and different ways. We’re learning a new skill and we’re learning how to pay attention. We’re growing our respiratory system to be able to breathe more deeply. We’re aligning our bones for more optimal alignment. We’re using our physically body to access deeper layers of our being and bringing awareness into areas of our body that, for most of us, go unnoticed for our entire lives. We’re building our physical and psychology capacity to withstand higher charges of energy. We’re strengthening the muscles of our physical body and the muscles of our discriminating wisdom.

When yoga “get’s too hard” yes, it might mean that we need to take a break. Yet it also might mean we’re expecting too much of ourselves too soon.

As one of my yoga teachers, Christina Sell, said to me once, “Don’t let yoga ruin your life.” What I believe she meant by that is, Don’t let yoga get in the way of enjoying your life. Don’t let yoga add to your self-hatred narrative. Don’t let yoga be another reason to be sharp with yourself.

Yoga is hard work, it’s challenging by nature because it’s designed to bring stuff up. The purpose of yoga is to turn us toward ourselves and it’s up to us to cultivate the attitude loving-kindness first. Asana means “seat” but it also means “attitude.” What is the posture or attitude you take toward yourself? When we can meet our challenges face-to-face or even sideways, we learn that there’s no way through but to go through. Doing hard things is part of living. As my yoga teacher, Bhavani Maki, likes to say, “How we do one thing is how we do everything.”

Therefore, if my habitual tendency is to just go to bed when life gets hard it might be a useful experiment for me to try to stay awake, to sit, to wait, and to breathe. On the other side of the same coin of practice, if my tendency is to push harder when I’m faced with obstacles, then it might be more useful for me to approach with a little more humility and curiosity.

Like yoga, like life, there is not one “right” answer for everyone. It is an experiential education. Whatever way we engage the path and practice of yoga, one thing is important to remember that “quitting” is optional. Trust your inner knowing and it yoga is “getting too hard” perhaps it’s time for a different approach. In my experience if you really want it, it will never leave you alone if you do take a break. Yoga is always with you for “the practice of yoga and the experience of yoga are one in the same.” –Bhavani Maki, The Yogi’s Roadmap

Much of yoga teaches us how we sit with discomfort— do we wince or fidget? Do we muscle through? Do we immediately adjust and make ourselves for comfortable? Do we breath and know we will be through it soon and we won’t die?

I have gone through periods of time “shoulding” on myself for not doing yoga, berating myself because I couldn’t do the poses the way I thought I “should” be doing them. Yoga is challenging physically. The discipline works muscles I often didn’t even know I had. However, when I am able to hold myself tenderly and realize that I am learning new ways of being in relationship with myself and with the world, and when I can remember to entrust myself to the process of being peeled back by the teachings of yoga, I am able to discover and enjoy the delicate work of finding the ever-elusive balance between effort and surrender.

Thank you.

And please keep coming to class. Let us together find a new way of being connected to the life force within.

Dance as Doorway

Dance.

Foundation. Fundamental ways of being. Radical: “with deep roots.”

I was three years old when my mom brought me to my first dance class with Janet Bicknese. I remember the mauve and blue chairs we used in lieu of a traditional ballet bar. I remember my pink ballet shoes that I coved and took extra special care of. My sister showed me how to tie my slippers, first to fit my feet, then to cut the laces and hide them on the inside so that the strings wouldn’t show. That’s how the big girls wore them.

We sat in a circle and let our feet say “hello.” Janet played classical piano music from a cassette tape player in the corner. We practiced our leaps across the floor. I believed that I could fly. We practiced plie (to bend), battemont (to beat), fondue (to melt). I’d never eaten fondue, but I’d eaten quesadillas and cheese omelets and I loved melting cheese. I loved my teacher because she put me in the front of the class because I listened well and was attentive to her every word. I loved learning to move my body. I loved the music that made me move.

Dance.

I loved dancing once I got there. To that little carpeted room in a double-wide with fluorescent lights on the ceiling and no mirrors. Getting to dance class was always a struggle. I remember fighting with my mother. I have no idea why I resisted going to dance class so much. I can only speculate now at age 31. Perhaps it was because I knew I would be asked to try new things, to do things I didn’t know how to do yet. I didn’t like making a fool of myself. I didn’t like the feeling of being awkward and learning new dance steps. It was uncomfortable and sometimes scary. But my love for dance won out. Making shapes with my body. Breathing, laughing, music. The music moved me. I could move and be free and I loved it. So I would eventually get in the car and go to class. I continue to thank my mother to this day for holding that firm line and “making” me go to dance class. [Thanks mom!]

Some girls were mean. They pushed and cut in line. I listened. I wanted to learn. I didn’t interrupt the teacher. I knew this was important. I didn’t know why. Mrs. Bickenese cultivated in me a desire to learn. She made dance fun. The created space for us to explore our bodies through movement. She made falling down okay.

Age seven. Dance with Jan Cavillary. Since I was a quick learner she asked me to into a more advanced ballet class with girls that were nine and eleven. I couldn’t keep up. I switched half-way through the year and when all the other students knew the warm-up routine, I was always on the wrong side, with the opposite foot. Jan taught dance not only as an art but also as a science. She demanded presence. No BS. “No street clothes,” she would chide. Mrs. Cavillary walked like a dancer, feet turned out, spine erect, majestic, stately, like a queen. I believed she was a goddess. She was 5 foot 2 inches tall. She instilled in us a sense of dedication to the craft of dance. Then Jan stopped teaching dance and went on to study Rolfing.

Dance at Donna’s. Age eleven.

I went to try out for point class. This is a big deal in the dance world. First, you have to be old enough so that the bones in your feet art stable. And second, you have to be well-practiced and trained. That day I came into the studio on a Saturday afternoon. There were 30 other young dancers. Turns out I didn’t have the right clothes for try-outs. I didn’t know there was a “uniform.” Black leotard, pink tights, pink shoes, hair in a tight bun on the very top of your head. I wore my favorite purple leotard, black tights, and my white ballet shoes. My hair wasn’t long enough for a bun. One of the older girls was very kind and helped to find me the right clothes. I wore clothes that didn’t belong to me. My hair was plastered to my head with hairspray, and I didn’t know anyone else in the class. I was brave. I finished the tryout. I didn’t make the cut. Even at a young age, I hated feeling unprepared. That’s the moment I “quite” ballet and never looked back.

Donna taught me how I didn’t not want to be.

I found Flamenco dancing at age 12. I learned rhythm, rigor, and timing. Loud, full flamboyant. I developed capacity and strength. I fortified myself to never return to ballet, (although there are some days I play the “What if game” with myself and it never ends well).

I learned partner dancing in middle school ages 13 and 14. African dance at age 18. Hip-hop, Jazz, Tap, Modern, and Contact Improvisation in college. Dance became my life. It was no longer just a hobby, I viewed dance a lifestyle.

Dance.

The discipline, the craft, the art, the science.

Inhabit the body. “The body is the way in not the way out.”–Lee Lozowick

I took my first public yoga class when I was 17 years old. I studied irregularly for six years. I completed my first yoga teacher training when I was 23. For the past ten years, I have steadily increased my yoga practice. At age 31, it is now something I cannot live without.

Dace.

The floor as our first “partner.” Not just feet or legs on the floor, but face, breasts, shoulders, elbows, butt, hands, knees.

Yoga.

“How we do one thing is how we do everything.” –Bhavani Silvia Maki

Healing through movement.

Dance taught me how to show up and practice anyway, even when I didn’t “feel” like it. Dance gave me a foundation.

Yoga added the layers of spirituality, heart, Grace, Divine Energy. A bigger, richer, deeper conversation. Psychology. Intentional breath, meditation, mindfulness. Yoga allows me to ask the question, “Who am I?” Over and over.

“I am That,” –Nisirgitatta Maharaj

Dance.

Through each teacher I have been asked to open, to see, learn, grow, and experience a new aspect of myself. I have been pushed to find a larger picture of connection. I have been offered a new way of savoring the world, this life, this body.

Intention. Move. Close your eyes. Listen.

“The body knows.” This was reinforced by dance and confirmed through yoga training. The importance of rigor and discipline in the context of learning any art or science is necessary.

“Open to Grace.” –John Friend

Dance.

Cheek to floor. The smell of wood and sweat and the full wall of mirrors. Learning to self-correct. Learning to hear instruction and implement that cue into my own body. Rhythm of the dancers moving together, in syncopation, our bodies making shapes, pulsing with breath, beat, nature. The music. The instructor’s slap. The demand. The attention. The rigor. The discipline for one hour each week. Twice a week. Three times a week. Five days a week, plus Saturday.

Dance as doorway to self and other and Universe.

A Note about Hands-On Adjustments

This is a huge topic that deserves to be written and discussed many times over, however, for my friends who read this blog, I want to just breifly, touch on a few points baout physicla adjustments.

Thank you.

Touch is a way to focus awareness and attention. Physical touch turns on receptors in the skin which sends a signal to the brain which elicits a relaxation and calming response in the body. For most people this is useful.

As a yoga student, my teachers gave me physical adjustments to ensure that I practiced correctly at home. I am a visual and kinesthetic learner so touch works for me. I am a kinesthetic and auditory teacher. I give clear yet gentle physical cues to help my students embody their own learning.

I believe that hands-on adjustments are necessary when the teacher is highly skilled and trained to give specific, direct, precise physical adjustments. Any modality can be over-used and abused. It is up to the teacher and the student to clearly define their rules for engagement. As a student please speak up if you are given any adjustment that doesn’t work for you. As a teacher, please be extremely aware when touching ANYBODY, especially in a teaching capacity where every move counts and actions often speak louder than words.

When I give physical adjustments is it only to those students who come regularly and who I know well and I sense that they are ready to receive more in-depth instruction through strong alignment.

For the same reason we want hands-on adjustment in order to clearly and directly heighten our awareness and gain more insight into our own movements, is also why we use props in the yoga classroom: a mat, the floor, blocks, strap/belt, the wall, blankets. Although we can do yoga without a yoga mat or hardwood floor, these are great tools for learning more about our own bodies.

Thank you. And please know that when I give a physical adjustment it is because you are ready to receive a higher level of teaching/learning, never because you’re “doing something wrong.”

Daily Rhythm

Dinacharya is a Sanskrit word that means, “Following the rhythm of the day.” Like a metronome, what we do consistently every day sets the rhythm for our life, whether we are conscious of it or not. I started studying Ayurveda many years after I completed my first yoga teacher training. I was looking for something that would help me find peace of mind and bring some semblance of balance into my life. That’s when Ayurveda found me. Ayurveda means, “The science of living,” which is a 5,000-year-old science that comes from India and takes its cues from Great Nature. What I discovered was that “balance” looks more like wobbling back and forth and all around rather than poise, or serenity, a fixed point on a spectrum.

What I continue to learn about my own organic nature in relationship to the Universal Nature, is that what I do every day matters. Not the grand gestures but the little things like brushing my teeth twice a day, hydrating first thing in the morning and eliminating my bowels fully (so that I’m not walking around full of sh** all day) meditating for 22 minutes, doing a 10-minute yoga asana practice, journaling for 10 solid minutes every day, and consistently eating three meals a day between the hours of 9 AM and 5 PM and not snacking. We’re talking the brick-and-mortar of “yoga,” of life, of every single day no matter where I am on planet earth. I follow the rhythm of the day, for example, I go to bed when the sun goes down (more or less) and I eat warm foods in Winter, and my whole body becomes more intuitive, resilient, and intelligent. I become more natural. It may seem so simple, but when I fight the urge to go to bed when I feel tired, I create dis-ease in my body, mind, and spirit.

Ayurveda tells us that diseases are generated at the junctions of the season, the moments when one season changes into another. –Dr. Robert Svoboda, Ayurveda for Women: a guide to vitality and health

The teachings of Ayurveda remind us that it is better to engage in daily activities which prevent illness before it occurs. As practitioners of yoga and students of life we are encouraged to live in a way that allows optimum flow of energy/prana/life force.

The Three Pillars of Dinacharya:

Body—a healthy flow of energy in the body, mind, and spirit allows each human time and space to rest, digest, and reset/rebalance. Drink plenty of water first thing in the morning to have a complete elimination, eat your food in a relaxed manner, with gratitude, sitting down, aim to be in bed before 10 PM to give the digestive system a chance to detox naturally. (Read Dr. Claudia Welch’s book Balance Your Hormones for more on this topic.)
Mind—as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali states, Yoga Chitta Vrtti Nirodha, “Yoga is the cessation of all self-limiting thoughts, patterns and tendencies within our personal energy field,” Bhavani Silvia Maki.
Spirit—”A living human being is a body-mind-spirit complex. Each part of you—organs, tissues, skeleton, nervous system, emotions, mind and others—possesses its own form of awareness, and each of these awarenesses relates together,” writes Dr. Svoboda in his book, Ayurveda for Woman, (p. 15). When start to pay attention to our bodies a whole world of awareness opens up. When we start to heed the signs that our bodies give us, we start to trust our own Great Nature.

As with any path of yoga, it’s life-long. Be gentle, go slow, and have faith. Thank you for sharing this journey with me.

If you’re curious about how you might align more fully with nature’s rhythms these are my own favorite resources. Find out more with Banyan Botanicals, Dr. Claudia Welch, and Dr. Robert Svoboda.

Just Write

As I sit on my couch to write in our dimly lit, snug one bedroom apartment with old, beige carpet and stained linoleum, the smell of lilies fills my nose and I pause to think about what might be useful to write. This is my aim, always, “To serve.” Often I don’t know how, I’m choked by fear, my mind tells me, “You’re not good enough, who do you think you are, what the heck?” and I am reminded of the first time I started a blog—I was 19 and went to Brazil for three months. Christina Sell suggested that I keep a blog. So I did. I trust most people until I don’t. She’s someone I continue to trust. It was a way my friends could follow along with what I was up to without inundating their e-mail inboxes. At first I felt afraid to write “out loud”—What can I say that will be useful and that people will enjoy? I had been instructed to, “Just write.” I started with the details. I wrote about my day, however uneventful. I told stories. And people actually read what I wrote, (other than my devoted mother, which), yes, surprised me! I kept writing.

In 2015 my writing changed. It became about marketing and sales as I forayed into being an entrepreneur in the health and wellness field. Whew! (My writing wasn’t bad, just different. I was unsatisfied.) My writing was strategic, and I thought in the language of “conversion rates,” and “opt-ins.” I wrote methodically, not organically. I forced it. I fell. As my dear Husband put it, “I was a little too aggressive.” Okay, he’s being nice here. I was extremely determined to make money at what I loved because that was what the culture was selling me. I trusted my mentor’s model, and I believed that I could “win” if I just pushed harder. So I pushed harder. My life came crashing down. I was trying so hard to make money doing what I loved, to make “it” happen. Dancing, reading, writing, teaching yoga, being outside, cooking food all become a platform for selling. Each yoga class I taught, every meal I prepared, I viewed through the lens of “Optimization” and “Capture to Sell.” I was not writing for the love of it anymore. I was writing content. I was not having fun. And I didn’t know it then. I was trying to make money and sell what I loved to other people.

Healing takes time. Discovery takes time. Re-learning takes, yup, you guessed it—time. I went through an incubation period. I slowed down. I went back to paper calendars. My laptop broke, I didn’t fix it. Through my efforts of trying so hard to connect with others I disconnected from me. What I’m learning on the path of the spirit is that we have to become fully ourselves first, before we can move along the path to serving others. Also, there are lessons we have to learn in life that are unavoidable, and sometimes those lessons are painful. However, as Patanjali says in Yoga Sutra II:26, Hayam duhkham anagatam, “The avoidable pain that is yet to come, can, and should, be avoided.” Through the practice of yoga, which requires steady effort and is not necessarily easy, we come face-to-face with ourselves. I’m grateful for the lessons and I try my very best to avoid the pain that can and should be avoided.

Today, I write to you on the eve of my 31 years on planet Earth. (Well, actually, my birthday is on November 12th, but at this age who’s counting). I sit here humbled, still naive, still wanting to serve, still wanting to make a difference in the world, but less aggressive in my approach (most days—I still get righteous and loud in defense of what I believe). This is a long story aimed at telling you why I write a blog, or write at all, or teach yoga, or do anything really—I “teach to learn,” as Bab Hari Das encouraged his students. He said, “I can teach you how to cook but I can’t eat for you.” I’m in the process of digesting a BIG meal that I received from one of my great yoga teachers, Bhavani Maki during the six weeks Jesse and I studied with her in Kauai. I’m re-learning what I love and how to write for fun. I thought I’d share this with you. Why? Because stories connect.

Werner Erhard said, “Relationship is a clearing for love to show up un.” Relationship, to me, is not hiding behind our hurt, not pushing our hurt onto others. Relationship is also not hiding behind a facade of “It’s all good,” or forcing our “know how,” or our “tips and tricks” onto others. I agree with Mr. Erhard that relationship is a clearing—it means turning toward that which is uncomfortable, facing what’s no longer working and “getting off it” as one of my teachers used to say—it means being spacious.

Today, as I talked to Jesse about the 9:00 AM yoga class I taught, my tone was a bit incredulous, “I had 18 people in the room! They just keep showing up,” I said. “Well, yeah!” He replied, a little exasperated but also smiling. “Shinay, this is what I’ve been telling you.” Okay, okay, I think to myself, When am I actually going to “get” this? Perhaps I just need to keep showing up. Perhaps I just need to do what I love and not try and convince anyone else of it’s worth (or my worth). And sometimes it’s not enough just to show up, to push, to sell, to cajole, to tell people what to do and how to do it—I have to do my own Work. This is true of writing and life and yoga. When I set out to write this letter, I wanted to tell you what I’ve learned, but instead, I told you a true story. I left out many details, which will come later, and I’ll leave you with this:

31 looks like a long way from understanding anything. And it’s a heck of a lot more fun when I get to do yoga and write about simply for the sake of loving to do both. With no hidden agenda. It’s getting dark now, and the sun is setting—golden, orange light along the tall, brittle grasses of the Arizona desert. I look up, I see a picture of my teacher’s face, I smile at him and nod. It feels good to be seen, it feels good to have written, even if no one reads my words. It feels okay to tall the truth, to not know some things, to fall down, and speak from the ground about the journey that got me there.