Category: learning

economy, learning

Beginning: How to Understand the U.S. Economy for Free

Christa Avampato

Over the weekend I watched the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and it took me back into those scary days 3 years ago. I started working in the financial services industry in August 2008, 5 weeks before Lehman Brothers failed and our economy spun into a seemingly hopeless downward spiral.

They were dark days, and somehow I was able to keep my fear at bay so that I could actually use the opportunity to learn something. I had a front row seat to the recession, and at any moment I could have been a casualty. There was little I could do about that potential outcome so every day I got up, went to work, and hoped that I could take some lesson away from the situation. Most of the days that strategy worked.

I was lucky to receive a top-notch education as an undergraduate and graduate student. It gave me a base of knowledge to draw from as I read about and listened to economic data. I adjusted my career and savings plans as a result of the recession and years from now I’m confident that I will look back on these years as ones that were tough and made me tougher.

But then I thought about how many people don’t have the education I have, and how daunting it can be to learn about the economy. It’s a mess of acronyms, numbers, and opinions that make it difficult to decipher the truth from fiction. I was also inspired by Occupy Wall Street and wanted to do something to help the protestors and their audience make sense of what’s going on around them. So I went looking for free sources that could help people who have an interest in learning more about the economy though don’t know exactly where to start.

About.com’s page on the U.S. economy – a well-done overview of the U.S. economy. Suitable for beginners and those who want a brush-up lesson.

Investopedia – I used this resource all of the time when I was in business school. They have a great financial dictionary, tutorials, and a well-organized set of top current news stories that relate to business.

Free online economics classes – collection of links to free Economics courses from the world’s leading universities. You can download these audio & video courses straight to your computer or mp3 player.

discovery, education, learning, politics

Beginning: The Opportunity of Us

Christa Avampato
From johnpicacio.com

“Two things awe me most, the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.” ~ Immanuel Kant

A couple of years ago, I took Michael Sandel’s online class Justice. (See also wrote a book by the same name, and it takes the basic principles discussed in his class and applies them to today’s economic, social, political, and spiritual debates.) Dr. Sandel is a Political Philosophy professor within Harvard Department of Government and his class is among the most famous in the world and one of the largest and most popular in Harvard’s history. The class is free and open to all.

Sandel is a master lecturer. He opens each class with a provocative and polarizing moral dilemma. Perhaps not surprising to any of you, I immediately have an opinion. Then somehow in the most elegant and subtle of ways, Dr. Sandel has me on the fence and in each class I am reminded that the opinions I think I am the most sure of are actually the ones I am not sure of at all. Suddenly, he has me questioning every moral decision I have made. Of course, this is his objective. As my 9th grade English teacher, Mr. Warren, once said, “Judgement stops thought.” Sandel’s trick is to get us to think again after we’ve judged – a mighty difficult feat.

It’s been such an interesting exercise to take the class again and see how my opinions and ideas have been changed by the last couple of years of experience. The one lessons that he continues to alight in me more than any other is that our minds have such an incredible capacity, a capacity beyond our own comprehension. In his lectures, I can actually feel the physical and metaphysical aspects of my brain stretching, reaching, and ultimately growing. As Kant, the subject of Dr. Sandel’s dissertation at Oxford, alludes to in the quote above, we are in awe of the stars above. Who or what made them, and why are they placed just so? And if their placement, and even their very existence, is all a random and perfect accident, then what triggered it and how sustainable is this situation? What’s the meaning of it all? Big, heady questions.

But there is another chance accident that is just as intriguing, personal, knowable, and close-to-home: the ability to change our minds. Yes, to change our opinions and points-of-view, but also to literally change our minds – the biochemistry, the actually wiring that makes our daily activities possible. We have an extraordinary capacity to believe and then alter our beliefs based upon new information, new experiences.

When we take a step back, we really must recognize that we are remarkable beings with unlimited potential, this vibrating mass of possibility. Just to think of this and begin to approach the full comprehension of the miracle that is us, I choke up. It gives me so much hope to understand that whatever ills we face today can all be changed tomorrow if we are willing to change. The state of the world very much depends upon the state of us, each and every one of us. A new beginning is only a thought away.   

education, learning, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Is It Time for Yoga University?

Christa Avampato

New York is blessed with a lot of wonderful yoga teacher training programs. It’s also home to some yoga teacher training programs that are put in place with the intention of helping studio owners pay the rent. The trouble is that it can be difficult to discern between these two groups. In the past, I’ve posted some advice on how to choose a yoga teacher training program and I think that advice is valid now more than ever.

A hunting we will go…
As I’ve gone hunting for programs to complete my 500-hour certification, I’ve become even more skeptical about the claims made on fancy brochures and websites. I start asking questions of some studio owners and I can literally feel their nervousness rise into their faces. I’m sure that they’d just prefer I choose to pay the fee (or not) and just go with it. This is yoga, right? Aren’t we training to go with the flow and the best of a situation? Well, yes, but this next phase of my teacher training situation is going to cost me something to the tune of $4K. That’s a lot of money and I want to make sure I’m getting as much value as I can and the right value for me. I’m asking as many questions as I’d like to ask. I’ve found two programs that were overjoyed with the number of questions I’ve asked and they’re extremely responsive so they are the ones I’m considering: ISHTA and Yoga Sutra.

What training do I really want?
In the last couple of weeks I’ve been tossing around some ideas of the kind of teacher training program I really want rather than just comparing the options to one another. Truthfully, what I really want is a masters degree in yoga, particularly because my interest is in using yoga in the medical field. I’m not trying to teach at my fancy neighborhood studio; I’m focused on getting yoga to people who aren’t going to walk into studios, people with critical illnesses. And to top it off, I want to be part of a team of healthcare professionals who collaborate and provide a patient / student with a holistic plan that includes yoga. I’m not sure a 500-hour teacher training program can completely prepare me for that kind of work.

LYT (Licensed Yoga Teacher)?
A few years ago there was a push in New York State to license all yoga teachers and studios. Right now, all we have are fairly flimsy certifications from the Yoga Alliance which basically amounts to us sending in a check, Yoga Alliance sending us a cardboard card with our name on it, and then making sure they have our address right so they can mail us a renewal notice a year later. In other words, if you can pay, you can play. (See Yogadork’s excellent article entitled, “Make Up or Break up: Yoga Alliance What Have You Done for Us Lately?” for more info on this subject.)

For the yoga instructor who wants to teach students who are in relatively good mental and physical health and who go to traditional shiny studios, licensing seems a bit excessive. Does NYS license sports coaches or personal trainers? No. The State’s argument is that yoga borders on physical therapy and physical therapists are most certainly licensed. I sort of understand that argument, but I question their ability to put true standards in place at shiny yoga studios. The state can barely attend to the workload they have now. And to be honest, I think it was just a play by the state to get more tax money rather than a real concern for people practicing yoga.

The State Has a Case In Me
Here’s where I think the state has a very strong case for licensing: instructors like me who want to be part of the healthcare network of providers. I would be more than happy, thrilled actually, to sit for a licensing exam if it meant that my students’ yoga classes would be covered by their insurance. I’ll prepare reports, stay in touch with their PCP, and secure their personal info in my systems. That’s the trade-off I’m willing to make. Give my students a way to be covered and I’ll do whatever I have to do on my end to make that coverage possible.

Insurance Is Going to Have Its Say
This leads me to my next conundrum – now insurance companies are going to weigh in on the kind of training that a teacher needs to have to legitimately qualify as a healthcare provider just as they do with therapists, acupuncturists, etc. Now things get really interesting. They don’t cover doctors, nurse practitioners, therapists, or social workers who get a few months of training and a flimsy certification. Licenses are the result of rigorous, multi-year study at accredited schools and then the students sit for licensing exams (often a series of them). If yoga teachers like me want to play in the healthcare space, why would they let us lower those standards? And if they did lower the standards for us, why would medical professionals see us as equals?

MY (Masters of Yoga)?
Maybe what some brave university needs to do is create a yoga curriculum within their existing graduate school structure. Some of you might cringe reading that. There’s been a lot of talk about the traditional education system going by the wayside in favor of more innovative forms of learning made possible by better technology. I don’t agree with that line of argument for medical professionals. I can’t yet imagine a world where a doctor does all of his or her learning remotely from an iPad. I feel the same way about learning to be a yoga instructor. It’s important to be in a class and working with students face-to-face because so much of yoga teaching is about a one-on-one connection. It can’t be engineered; it needs to be fully experienced.

There are so many pros and cons of this formal education in yoga; many times they’re one and the same. The oversight from a university could be both a blessing and a curse. Yoga programs may become even more expensive at a university, though there would be the opportunity of financial aid. A university could put the muscle behind more robust yoga research, perhaps heightening the controversy over its benefits and perhaps legitimizing it as a viable form of treatment.

Still, I think this idea has potential for teachers like me. I’m going to kick the tires a bit and reach out to my own alma maters to see if there’s interest in exploring the topic. The time and effort it would take would be  worth it if I could be a part of building the kind of program I’d like to have and if more people (teachers and students) would benefit.

learning, yoga

Beginning: Practice Makes Better

Christa Avampato

“Practice is the best of all instructors.” ~ Publilius Syrus, Roman author, 1st century B.C.

I recently went to Paula Lynch’s class at Yoga Works. The class was beautifully sequenced and I learned so much about alignment in the process. She spent a good deal of time prepping our arms and backs because the class culminated in practicing our form in handstand and headstand, two asanas I very much need to practice and that few classes ever attempt. Some yogis can lift up into these postures with both legs at the same time. I cannot. I need to use one leg to gently kick into the postures, and my right leg is my dominant leg.

Paula asked us to practice with our non-dominant or vacation leg. This was very challenging for me. I could easily get into handstand with my right leg. When I used my left leg I struggled to even been in the posture for a moment. As Paula made her rounds through the class, I flagged her over and asked if she could help me figure out why I had so much trouble using my left leg to kick up.

“Do you practice with your vacation leg?” she asked me.

“Well, no, but I was just…,” I stuttered.

“Then go home and practice with that leg.”

“But I’m thinking maybe it’s my form with that leg…”

“No. You just don’t practice with it.”

“So I should practice with both legs equally?”

Now she was getting annoyed. “No. Practice with your vacation left every day until you get it. It’s kind of like driving a car. When you get in a car for the first time, you aren’t going to be able to drive. You need to practice. Yoga’s no different.“ And she promptly turned around and walked off to the next student.

I left the class a little annoyed with her. She didn’t have to be rude. I was just asking a question. There was a nicer way to say what she was saying, though the lesson was not lost on me. I heard it loud and clear, and it makes perfect sense.

We expect so much from ourselves. In Paula’s curt words, she was telling me to be kinder to myself, to understand that we never learn to do anything without practice. This is particularly important when we are just starting out on the road to a new skill, or in this case a new way of getting into an asana. It takes time, patience, and work. 

learning, risk, television

Beginning: Finding Comfort Outside Your Comfort Zone

Christa Avampato
From http://gosmellthecoffee.com/

“Your current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers.” – Unknown via MJ, one of this blog’s readers

MJ, a reader of this blog and constant source of inspiration and ideas for me, sent through this quote in a recent comment on my post about negotiating the balance between fear and boredom as we take on new projects. New beginnings can be frightening; many times we must let go of old conceptions of ourselves, our lives, and the world around us so that we can try something new. This release is a death of sorts that allows for new life.

A few years ago I was recounting the story of my NBC job interview to my friend, Brooke. Many of the people I interviewed with were horrified that I didn’t have any TV experience. I was feeling pretty down about the interview until Brooke said to me, “Well have they known about TV since birth? We all start out not knowing anything!” That idea pops into my head every time I start a new project and have any moments of self-doubt.

We all start somewhere. At some point, everything we now know was uncharted territory. Your new beginnings today are no less scary and no more certain that those you experienced yesterday. Just begin. Life is a lottery – you’ve got to be in it to win it so do the things that light you up!

books, leadership, learning

Beginning: The Lessons of Great Men

Christa Avampato

Forbes Magazine ran an excellent article this month by author and biographer Paul Johnson about the lessons learned from the lives of a handful of great men, and by great they mean well-known. Some of them made drastic mistakes that we can learn from. Others lived lives of nobility that we would do well to follow. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t include any women in the article; I’ll draft that one shortly.

I highly encourage you to read Johnson’s full article – it’s articulate and very well-organized, exactly what a biography should be. In the mean time, here’s the condensed version listing the great men he includes in the article and the lesson we should take from each of their lives:

Napoleon: “The important thing about success is knowing when to stop.”

Washington: “A successful general should not seek political power; he should wait to be called by the unanimous voice of the people.” [Johnson adds here that business people who seek political power would be wise to follow Washington’s example. Donald Trump, I think he’s talking to you.]

Churchill: “Never give up.”

Jesus: “People are infinitely more important than things.”

Socrates: “Never think you know all the answers. Wisdom lies not in possessing knowledge – which quickly becomes outdated – but in perpetually seeking it.”

Darwin: “Nothing is so small as to be insignificant. Success in business is getting countless small things right. The big things then naturally follow.” [This is my favorite part of the article!]

Mozart: “Start early.”

We have much to learn from the lives of others. Noted.

career, dreams, learning, work, yoga

Beginning: Wounds Can Be Made Into Wisdom

Christa Avampato

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” ~ Oprah Winfrey

Opposites are a blessing. We gain new insight into joy through sorrow, love through heartbreak, health through sickness, success through failure. In this way, not getting what we want is a reason to be grateful.

A blessing wrapped in disappointment
When I graduated from business school, I wanted to get a job in media. I had been out of the entertainment industry for a few years and I wanted to get to it more than anything. I interviewed at NBC and it proved to be a day of horrible experiences. I didn’t get the job, and even if I did I wouldn’t have taken it. The day of interviews was that bad, and I was horribly disappointed and hurt by the process. I have been a huge fan of NBC since I was a kid, and this was a dream job for me for as long as I can remember. With this opportunity gone, I had to get a new dream. And I did through Compass Yoga. NBC did me a huge favor in the long-run, even if I didn’t know that at the time.

A chance to show what you know
As life often does, I got another chance to enter the world of television. I recently interviewed for another large TV network whose work I greatly admire. This time I didn’t go into the situation with rose-colored glasses like I did with NBC. I was clear about who I am, how I like to work, and what I’m meant to do. This opportunity just wasn’t what I wanted, and so I opted out of the process despite the network’s strong plea for me to see it through.

That wound from my NBC interview provided me with a great amount of wisdom and the confidence to take control of my own career. It felt good to turn toward a path of my own making.

learning, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Practicing and Teaching Yoga Takes Great Courage

Christa Avampato

“People who practice yoga and meditation are the most courageous people in the world. They are willing to sit with their pain in order to heal it. I don’t know anyone who’s had an easy life. Do you? Trauma and suffering are part of the human experience. Give yourself over to explore it; go into it. We are so complex and so amazing.” ~ Cheri Clampett, Yoga Therapist and Teacher

At Integral Yoga Institute, Cheri talked with us about the power of guided meditation and how critical it is for us to create a safe space in our classes for all of our students. Yoga, the physical and mental exercise of processing the memories in our bodies and in our minds, can surface power emotions and we have to be so brave to sit with those emotions. I knew I was ready to teach when I had a very powerful experience in final relaxation pose. It started me down the path of reconciling with my father many years after he passed away. Someday I’ll tell you about that story – its very sad beginning, its long and winding path, and its peaceful resolution – that shaped who I am as a teacher and as a human being. Through that experience I learned that when you say a prayer with all your heart, the Universe responds with an immediacy and accuracy that will astound even the greatest skeptics. That is another post for another time. This post is a caution and encouragement for everyone who teaches yoga or hopes to do so. You have no idea just how valuable, loved, and necessary you are to the well-being of everyone you teach.

A word to the wise
In a yoga class you have to be ready for everything. You go right ahead and prepare your sequences, your intention for the class, and maybe even some of your specific comments and remarks. Then be prepared to chuck it all out the window because it’s not going down the way you planned. When you walk into a class, you have to be able to read your students within an instant, and change your plans accordingly. The class is about them and their journey, not yours.

While it’s very nice to have everything all laid out exactly how you’d like it go, what you planned on giving may not be what your students need. They will have mental and physical challenges to contend with. They are under stresses that you didn’t plan for. Your job, and in my opinion your only job, as a teacher is to create a safe space for all of them to just be, in whatever state they are in.  They will laugh, they will cry, and they will break down. And no matter what you have to stay with them; you have to keep all of your senses firing on full tilt so you can be supportive and strong without expressing pity. When someone’s drowning, they don’t want to grab the hand of someone else who is drowning, too. They want someone on dry land who possess the strength to help them through. In a yoga class, that someone on dry land is you, the teacher, and it is an awesome and intense responsibility. It is not a job for the faint of heart, but a job for those with the biggest hearts.

You are precious beyond measure
You may not know what a gift this safe space called your class is. Your students spend their whole lives putting on a brave face, soldiering up to be someone playing a very specific role at work, at home, with their friends and family members. And even if they love playing that role, it is an exhausting load to carry around. They spend 99% of their time doing and about 1% of their time just being. That 1% happens in your class, and you can’t let them down. It took a lot of guts for them to walk into your class, leave the world outside, and go within. Within can be a scary place. They need you, even if they don’t know exactly why when they walk into the class.

Our bodies surprise us
That’s the funny thing about emotional and physical releases in yoga. We often don’t know they’re coming, making our seeking them out an even more courageous act. They catch us off guard, and that puts us in an even more fragile state. I know first hand. In my final relaxation posture that made me want to be a teacher, I had no warning of the release I felt. Truth be told, I didn’t even know I was holding on to so much grief, regret, and loss. My teacher could have easily come over to check on me, to give me a hug, to give me some kind of sympathy. She didn’t. She created the safe space to let me work it out on my own so that I could preserve my dignity and get the most from this experience which I clearly needed. In Arturo Peal’s words, she gave me support when I needed it and space when I needed it. I think of her generosity every time I teach a class, and strive to be as giving to my students as she was to me. She was strong when I couldn’t be. I still tear up when I think about that moment, and it’s been 7 years.

You have the ability to have this same kind of effect on someone in your class, everyone in your class. In Cheri’s beautiful words, “We are all healing on some level.” Your students show up so that they can heal in your presence. They have come to you as seekers and they need your support on their self-designed journey. Walk with them; be steady when they can’t be; give them the space to feel their feelings and celebrate wherever they are along the path. You never know just how big a part you can play in the evolution of someone’s spirit. This is powerful, courageous work. Give the very best you’ve got to your students, and they’ll astound you with how much they give in return.

experience, learning, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Why You Need to Know What You’re Doing

Christa Avampato

“If you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want.” ~ Moshe Feldenkrais

“Awareness is the first tool of change.” ~ Arturo Peal

Sometimes you can play the game of fake it ’til you make it. You can make it up as you go along, and hope that it all goes well. I’m not an enormous fan of winging it. My MO is to plan, plot, and prepare. In the past year, I have let go of some of that. I do feel a little more at ease taking life as it comes when there simply is no other option. Winging it is still a last resort for me.

Practice helps
I believe there is something really powerful about the art of practice. Through discipline we continuously improve and build an awareness that helps refine our skills. The goal of practice isn’t to be perfect; it’s to be the best version of ourselves at every moment. When we are aware we are always in a state of learning. It’s a virtuous cycle: the more aware we become, the more we learn, and the more we learn, the better we become in our chosen field.

Choose your direction
It’s that idea of our chosen field that came to find when Arturo shared Moshe Feldenkrais’s famous saying, and then added his own thoughts about awareness as the prime tool to generate change. It’s an especially relevant concept for teachers. Teaching is a performance, and yes, you absolutely need to roll with the punches. However, it’s much easier to roll with those punches if you know what you’re doing, at least in a broad sense if not specifically. When I was in business school at Darden, I could always tell who was a seasoned master case method teacher. Their delivery, commentary, and ability to steer the conversation without stifling the students’ creativity always impressed me. Their practice over many years made all the difference.

I consider all of the times in my life when I’ve been really frustrated, when I’m just not sure what to do next or how to get out of the rut I so much want to leave behind. There’s nothing that gets me down more than the feeling that I’m spinning my wheels to no avail. These moments find me most often when I just don’t know what I’m doing. This feeling attacks my confidence and sense of ease. If I can just take a deep breath, crank up my awareness, and recall when I’ve been in a similar situation before, I can begin to find my way one step at a time. My confidence builds, my ease returns, and I begin to do the work I want to do.

You can prepare to adapt
Preparation and improvisation don’t need to be mutually exclusive. I’m beginning to see that our ability to effectively prepare while also being able to handle unexpected change is the very best way of living. To take our lives in the direction we want them to go, we need to know which road to take even if we don’t know all the turns that will crop up along the way. Our preparation helps us choose the right road. Our ability to adapt helps us navigate the inevitable twists and turns.

books, learning, yoga

Beginning: Yoga Teaches Us to Fall with Grace

Christa Avampato

Photo by Elwanderer
“One learns to fall gracefully in order to roll.” ~ Matthew Sanford

Two weeks later, I’m still thinking about Matthew Sanford’s talk at the Yoga Journal Conference. His book, Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence had a profound effect on me, how I see the world, and how I see my own yoga practice and teaching. The quote above is one of my favorites from the book. It’s the lesson Matthew learned from one of his yoga students who has cerebral palsy. The man explained that falling is a regular event for him, particularly as he gets in and out of the shower. He had hoped that yoga would help him improve his balance so he wouldn’t fall so often. And then one day he did fall and his body lightly landed on the ground without much pain. At that moment he realized that what yoga really taught him to do was how to fall with grace so that he didn’t get badly hurt when he fell.

The Universe has a wonderful way of handing us exactly what we need, though the method by which we get it isn’t always apparent to us. Matthew’s student end goal wasn’t to fall less; he wanted to get hurt less. He thought that would happen, and logically so, by falling less often. Instead, he learned to have grace on the way down and built strength to lift himself back up. Same goal accomplished, just a different path than he planned.

This time around Memorial Day is always a powerful one for me. There are changes and shifts that seem to happen in my life every year at just about this time. I make decisions and plans about what to do and what to stop doing. I always meet new people, some of whom end up becoming an integral part of my life. I’m confronted with new areas of learning and challenge that engage and inspire me. There is always a period of new beginnings for me that finds its roots on the doorstep of summer. I’m conscious of the end goals of these new beginnings, and open to the different paths that may lead to them.