Category: yoga

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.

creativity, experience, teaching, yoga

Beginning: If You’re Going to Experiment, You Need a Laboratory

Christa Avampato
From smashingapps.com

“Experimentation is an active science.” ~ Claude Bernard

The only way anyone can really learn to teach is to practice. No amount of book learning or observation (and I am an enormous fan of both practices!) can really prepare us to stand before a group of willing minds and bodies who want to learn what we know. We have to take our place at the helm of a class and give it a whirl, over and over and over again.

This is especially true when learning to teach yoga. The cadence, tone, and volume of our voices, how we tread the lines of observing our students, adjusting them verbally and physically, demonstrating, and giving them information about a posture’s benefits all take a good deal of practice. To practice we need a laboratory – a place where we can try experiment and play to gauge what works and what doesn’t. My laboratory for teaching is my free class at the New York Public Library on Wednesday nights at 6:00pm.

Tonight we started class with a few postures that I learned over the weekend at my therapeutic yoga training at Integral Yoga. These postures are more based in Traditional Chinese Medicine  than yoga, and asked if they’d be willing to give them a go so I could practice teaching them. Gracious as always, they were more than happy to give them a try to help me out. It was a great gift for me to practice receiving help, something that is sometimes difficult for me to request. I’m used to giving all the time; the students were more than happy to be able to give in return.

Labs gives us the chance to try what’s difficult for us, which is often exactly what we need to do, and it promotes the growth of the individual and the participating community. It also opened up the dialogue. The students felt more willing to ask question than they have in other classes. Rebecca, the head librarian at Bloomingdale who makes this class possible, walked me out after the class. “I have to miss next week’s class and I’m not happy about it. This one hour of class makes my whole week manageable.”

And that’s the benefit I didn’t know a lab could provide – the freedom it represents gives all of us permission to check our cares at the door and for a brief time just be.

harmony, health, teaching, yoga

Beginning: Help Someone in Need with Space or Support

Christa Avampato

Cover for Arturo's latest meditation CD
“When you see a student needs help, ask yourself one question: does she need space or support?” ~ Arturo Peal, Teacher

During my last teaching session this weekend in my therapeutic yoga teacher training, I had a student, Rebecca, who was having a tough time getting comfortable on her side. I placed more padding under her hip and that didn’t help. I called Arturo over and rather than just telling me what to do, he asked me a question to help me find my way – the mark of an exceptional teacher. “Does she need space or support?” he asked me. The support under Rebecca’s hip didn’t help, so she what she needed was space so her hip could relax. “And how can you give her space?” Arturo asked me. “Prop under the rib cage and under the knee so the hip floats,” I replied. He smiled his big, beautiful smile, and moved on. It was the proudest moment of my weekend. Maybe even the proudest moment of my teaching.

After the class, Arturo told me he had learned this question of space and support from Judith Lasater, a brilliant P.T. and yoga teacher who is deeply associated with therapeutic yoga. Arturo took a number of anatomy workshops with her as part of his holistic wellness training. Arturo has deep and varied credential as a certified yoga therapist and anatomy instructor, and also has a Master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine, is a certified Craniosacral Therapist, and earned a 4th degree black belt in Aikido, “the Way of harmonious spirit”. He’s been teaching and working with students in all of these areas for 30+ years, and his accumulated, assimilated, deep wisdom shows in his manner and in all of his instruction. I highly recommend taking a workshop, retreat, or class with him whenever you have the chance.

I’ve thought a lot about the quote above by Arturo over the past few days. The best parts of yoga I find are in their application way off the mat – as we’re walking through our day, interacting with others, and building lives and relationships. Whenever we see someone with any kind of need, whether that’s an adjustment in a yoga posture, a problem at work, a problem in a relationship, or in dealing with an emotion like anger, trauma, sadness, loss, frustration, or anxiety, there is always an answer to the question, “do they need support or space?” Does someone need a hug or do they need to be left alone? Do they need advice or do they just need someone to listen silently?

Every challenge we face needs either support or space – the key to transformative care, teaching, and healing that helps students on the deepest levels is to know which to apply when.

health, stress, teaching, yoga

Beginning: A Weekend of Therapeutic Yoga and a Proposal for You

Christa Avampato

Cheri Clampett guiding a student through a therapeutic yoga posture
“You are already perfect, whole, and complete. The work we do, the work of yoga, is to remove the obstacles to our own truth.” ~ Cheri Clampett

I spent the weekend at Integral Yoga Institute for Cheri Clampett and Arturo Peal‘s Therapeutic Yoga Teacher Training. In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing a lot about all of the powerful lessons that Cheri and Arturo generously handed to all of us.

What is Therapeutic Yoga?
Therapeutic Yoga, as Cheri and Arturo have defined it, combines restorative yoga, gentle yoga, Traditional Chinese Medicine, massage, breathwork, energy work, and guided meditation. A session is composed of a handful of poses, supported with props as needed, that are held for 5 – 15 minutes each. The goal is to help the student deeply relax into a meditative state, exerting minimal effort, by having each pose tailor-adjusted to meet the needs of the individual. In this way, therapeutic yoga is available to everyone regardless of age or health issues. Even people who are in the final days of their lives can find comfort in these postures. It is truly a practice for everyone.

Teacher as guide
All weekend, I was struck by the honesty, grace, and kindness that Cheri and Arturo gave to us through their own teaching. Though we covered a tremendous amount of material, I never felt rushed or stressed in their presence, and when it came time for me to work individually with my teaching partner, I didn’t feel the nervousness that I became so used to feeling when I went through my 200-hour training. All of a sudden, the knowledge that Cheri and Arturo gave to us was just there for me to freely incorporate into my usual teaching methods. It felt so natural that all I had to do was be with my partner and focus on what she needed. The class became all about her, and very little to do with me. I was just the guide who helped her open the door to her own peace.

What teaching teaches the teacher
When I got home, I went into the bathroom to wash my face. I looked up into the mirror and surprised myself. I actually looked younger. I had expected a full weekend of teacher training to leave feeling happy but spent, as it had during my 200 hour teacher training. Instead, I just felt present and whole in a way that I haven’t felt in some time. “I see now,” I thought. “So this is where I am supposed to be. This is the hour and method of my teaching.” I began to think of all of the people who could benefit from this practice, particularly those who are navigating their way through trauma such as veterans, police officers, care givers, those managing difficult illnesses, and people who are undertaking any kind of major transition in their lives. In that moment in the mirror, I became acutely aware of just how much I have to offer to those who want to heal. As Arturo said to us, “What feels good is good.” After this weekend, I feel amazing.

My offer to you
And now my proposal: In light of all this goodness that Cheri and Arturo shared so freely with us, I want to pay it forward. If you’re based in NYC and would like to have a free private therapeutic yoga session with me, or have a friend or family member who would be interested, I’d love to introduce you to the practice. Leave a comment, send me an email, FB message, tweet, or text, give me a ring, and we’ll find a time to make it happen. Thanks in advance for your partnership as I explore this path.

change, decision-making, yoga

Beginning: Making the Leap from What You Are to What You Could Be

Christa Avampato

Artist: Hilary Morgan
“The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” ~ Charles DuBois via Dailygood.org

“That which we grip we are destined to lose. That’s what our yoga practice teaches us.” ~ Matthew Sanford

I talk to a lot of people every day who feel stuck. They want to do X but, for one reason or another they can’t. So they do Y because “it’s a good, steady gig with predictable results.” And besides, everyone tells them that X is a little too far-fecthed. “I should just stay where I am,” they say, with their heads hung low and the deafening sound of defeat. Part of me wants to give them a good swift kick to help them “snap out of it”, but I don’t believe in violence so instead I listen and encourage. I really do understand their position even though I don’t like it; I empathize with it because I’ve been there a time or two. “Stuck” is an uncomfortable place to be and yet also a hard place to leave. Shrugging it off and moving on often feels like a superhuman feat, and it’s scary. I encourage them to be scared, and shrug anyway because that’s worked for me.

A lesson in getting unstuck
I was recounting a “stuck” feeling to my coach, Brian, a few weeks ago, and explaining to him that I was getting nervous that I was approaching that terrifying point of releasing what I am for the hope of what I could be, specifically related to my plans for Compass Yoga. He explained that there really was no point in being afraid, to which I cocked my head to one side and looked at him with my “you’ve got to be kidding me” face. He continued, as he always does, despite my expression. “When you’re done, you’re done, and there’s no way to stay stuck. Your authenticity, your YOGA, Christa, will not allow it. You don’t control when you’re done. Eventually you will force yourself to make the leap from what you are to what you will be because no other option will be available.” It’s these powerhouse comments that keep me going back to Brian every week; he is a teacher in the truest sense of the term.

Real safety
I’ve previously talked about the fabricated idea of safety that too many of us have clung to for far too long. The surest way to safety is trust, in you, in others, in a grand plan that is much bigger than you and me. I’m not sure how or why karma works, and to be honest I don’t ever really need to know how or why. I do know the best things that have happened in my life have had absolutely nothing to do with plans I made. Making those plans was just practice for the real tests that came my way. What allowed me to move ahead on my path was not my plan but my ability to be open, to listen, and to learn from my new, unplanned circumstances. I learned to be a master adjuster.

A gentle way to transform
In no way am I suggesting that you chuck caution to the wind, quit everything you’re doing in your life, and go crazy with your dream journal. Not at all. My suggestion is simpler: sit and breath. Notice where you’re gripping, in your body and in your mind, and see if you can loosen the reins a bit. Notice where you’re closed off and see if you can begin to open. Once you feel open, then consider what you are and what you’d really like to be. Are they very different people? If not, what small change can you make today to bring you closer to what you could be? If so, can you begin to build the courage and the strength to leap?

care, crime, health, yoga

Beginning: Body Over Mind When Dealing with Trauma

Christa Avampato

“Our task must be to free ourselves.” ~ Albert Einstein

There’s no rule against having many sides to your personality. For too many years I thought I had to have one set of traits that didn’t contradict each other. My life as a child was chaotic and so as an adult I strove for consistency in every facet of my life. As I got older, I began to release some of the desire for consistency and found that at times I could be very assertive and at other times very shy. I could help and then ask for help when I needed it. I learned that there were times to be strong and times to let my vulnerability show. The key to balance between all of these different sides was authenticity, being in every moment. Authenticity always leads us to the appropriate behavior at the appropriate time. This idea of authenticity and being in the moment saved my life exactly twice.

A time for action
Had my head been able to rule my gut when my apartment building caught fire almost 2 years ago, I would not be here to write this post to you. Without a split second of conscious thought, I felt an incredibly assertive, unshakable strength in my belly. I literally flew down four floors, past burning apartments, and never felt my feet hit the ground. It was pitch black and I couldn’t see even an inch in front of me. It was as if I had been tightly blindfolded, and still I kept moving without hesitation. It that moment, my body chose life.

A time to give up
When I was a sophomore in college in Philadelphia I was robbed at knife point in the campus subway station. I was heading downtown to buy reeds for my saxophone at my favorite music shop. A man appeared in front of me without warning as I waited for my train, looming over me with a long, thin, sharp knife at my gut. “I don’t wanna hurt you; I just need your wallet.” All I could focus on was the gleam off of that blade. Without thinking I reached into my bag, grabbed my wallet, and handed it to him. He took the cash, handed the wallet back to me, and shooed me out of the station with the knife.

This time, I did feel my feet, and knees and face, hit the floor as I clumsily scrambled up the stairs. I felt like the subway station spit me out onto the sidewalk when I got to the surface. A naval officer was walking by and stopped to help me. He stayed with me while I talked to the police and even got me safely back to my dorm. Again, my gut chose life, but this time it chose life by giving up.

Both of these events brought on a good deal of trauma for me even though no bodily harm resulted from either incident. The pain and the harm was all in my mind and in my spirit. I was fearful and angry after both incidents, and wasn’t sure how to process either of those emotions. I was adrift, and I felt alone.

Recovery time
It took me a solid 6 months to get through the aftermath of the apartment building fire and over 2 years to get through the fear I felt on campus after the robbery. Help came in two completely different forms.

Asking for help
I credit my increased ability to ask for help with the shortened recovery time after the fire. I started working with my coach, Brian, as a result of the fire and it has proven to be one of the very best relationships of my life. When I was in college I was convinced that I had to get through the robbery on my own. If I didn’t feel okay, I needed to fake it. I didn’t go to counseling and I rarely talked about the incident with my friends. I beat myself up for giving that man my wallet; I didn’t honor the quiet strength of surrender that had saved my life.

How healing begins
With the fire, I couldn’t pretend to be okay. I would be walking down the street and suddenly be hysterical sitting on the curb. I couldn’t buy anything and I couldn’t hang up anything on the walls of my apartment. I was clearly not okay, and the guy I was dating at the time just wanted me to “get over it.” My friend, Rob, knew better and he referred me to Brian. Brian helped me reclaim my authenticity, find my voice, and taught me about the balance we can and should strike between strength and vulnerability.

After two years of completely avoiding the Philadelphia subway, Paul, my senior year boyfriend, suggested we take the train downtown. I couldn’t walk down the steps, and for the first time I told him the story about the robbery. We could have just walked or taken a cab. Instead, he grabbed my hand, guided me down the stairs, got on the train with me, and let me just cry it out. He literally cracked my heart open so I could begin to heal.

We can’t go it alone
We have the ability to be appropriately tough and soft. Our body knows exactly which way to be at every moment. It’s our mind that gets in the way. It’s the stories we tell ourselves that really send us into a tailspin. The hardest part of dealing with trauma is not the incident that causes it; it’s the sifting that our mind has to do once the danger recedes. Once we are through the physical cause of the trauma, we are left with so much to process and rarely can we do that processing alone. The mind needs patience and time, and very often the loving heart and healing of another person to help make us whole again. That person can be a teacher, a partner, a friend. What those going through trauma must know is that they don’t have to go it alone; there is someone who can help if only we can be strong enough, and equally vulnerable, to let someone else in.

What these incidents mean for my yoga teaching
These two incidents, and several other periods that I went through earlier in my life, led me to a strong interest in trauma and neuroscience. For a time I thought this interest was leading me to medical school when I suddenly realized that my long-time yoga practice was merging with my interest in how the mind recovers and heals. These two parts of my life has been calling to one another, learning from each other, and informing one another.

Slow gratitude
Yoga gave me a way to begin to be grateful for trauma. It’s only recently that I realized this was even possible. I thought trauma was a thing to file away as deeply as possible. I thought the best I could hope for would be to forget it, bury it. Healing is not an easy task; it’s difficult and uncomfortable and painfully slow. With patience and time, everything is possible, even the healing that we think will never come. I’m learning that eventually, we really can be truly grateful for even our darkest moments because they are often the spark that leads to our brightest light.

business, yoga

Beginning: 6 Crucial Pieces of Advice for Nonprofit Business Plans

Christa Avampato

From Flickr
“If your life’s work can be accomplished in your lifetime, then you aren’t thinking big enough.” ~ Wes Jackson

It’s so easy to fall in love with our ideas, so in love that we become blind to the glaring gaps and omissions that need to be thought through carefully. I had dinner with my friend, Michael, last night. He was one of the people whom I asked to review the first draft of my business plan for Compass Yoga. As usual, he responded with thoughtful insight, sound questions, and wise advice. He is one of those people who can tread that delicate line between being unfailingly supportive while also challenging my thought process, and he shares his opinions with grace and in the best interest of the person he is helping. He is tough but fair.

His advice is just too good for me to keep all to myself so I wanted to share it with you as well in the hopes that it helps your projects, too:

1.) First, start small. I have a tendency to take a project and throw in every last possible idea that may have something to do with my main goal. I let my imagination run wild, which in the concept phase is certainly fine and highly encouraged. Michael helped me to see that I had to stay true to my main mission for Compass as it gets off the ground and not get distracted with tangential side bars.

2.) Corporate and government grants are the most thankless forms of funding. I had been considering them as revenue streams and Michael encouraged me to put them aside for the initial launch. They’re a huge time suck and the arduous amount of paperwork makes them less than worthwhile for a new organization. What does make sense is to become an authorized contractor. A lot of paperwork there as well, but much more lucrative than being a grantee.

3.) Be self-sustaining. Michael and I both worked in the nonprofit world. We both spent a lot of time trying to encourage our respective organizations to generate their own revenue for the sake of sustainability. Though I’ve preached this to others, I didn’t take Michael’s advice in my own business plan. I needed his voice of reason as a strong reminder of the idea that “nonprofit” doesn’t equal “give away the farm”. Core services should be self-funding with grants for additional programming. In this way, an organization is never beholden to any one revenue stream.

4.) Keep your day job. This is a favorite topic of ours. We’ve both done the dance of how to balance a career with our passions and how to fund it all in the process. Having a day job with a stable income and reasonable hours provides entrepreneurs with the freedom to experiment as they scale. There’s no time pressure to get results so you can pay your bills, and therefore you can make all the right choices for all of the right reasons.

5.) The only way forward is together. When Michael read my business plan his first thought was, “You and what army are going to fill this enormous, latent need?” The mission is an audacious goal – the work of many lifetimes – and partnerships are critical. My life’s work is bigger than my lifetime, and therefore needs others to have as a great as impact as possible.

6.) Focus on your unique abilities. It’s well and good to frame up a feel-good mission that people will have some heart for. To put that mission into action, financial partners will need to understand how a partnership with Compass Yoga saves them a good deal of money over the lifetime of the partnership and that I can provide a service that they aren’t equipped to provide themselves. They need to fully understand in plain speak that they need what I have to offer, and that what I have to offer is more than they could get from any other partner. What makes us unique is what makes our market position defensible.

I left dinner with Michael feeling both grateful and hopeful. Grateful that he took so much time and care to offer this much support, and hopeful that I can actually get this going far sooner than I expected. By starting small there’s no reason that I can’t get going immediately. Many times, the tendency with big projects is to wait as if waiting will bring about some magical time when it all falls in to place. My experience has shown that magic doesn’t just show up; we have to get out there, work hard, and cultivate it. The magic lies within us.

health, medical, military, yoga

Beginning: Why I Want to Work With Returning Veterans Through Compass Yoga

Christa Avampato

Damon Winter/The New York Times. 87th Battalion in Afghanistan
New York Times Quotation of the Day: “A lot of people were excited about coming home. Me, I just sat there and I wondered: What am I coming back to?” ~ Sgt. Brian Keith, part of the First Battalion, 87th Infantry in Fort Drum, N.Y., which recently finished a yearlong tour in Afghanistan

This quote perfectly encapsulates why I’m so interested in making veterans a central population I work with through Compass Yoga. On Memorial Day, we spend a lot of well deserved time paying tribute to the service of our troops at home and abroad. Most of this tribute goes toward their courage on the battle fields that are all-too-common in today’s world. I always wonder (and worry) about what that time in battle does to them in the quiet moments when they are alone, what it does to their families, and how they will integrate back into society when their tours of duty end. I worry most about the people like Sgt. Brian Keith, and I want to help them. After all they’ve done for us, I feel that this is the very least I can do for them.

Here are the facts that lead me to feel so much compassion and duty to serve veterans through Compass Yoga:

1.)20% of soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq have PTSD while a total of 40% of those from tours of duty in Iraq alone have some type of mental health issue

2.) 20% of all suicides in the U.S. every year are veterans.

3.) Recent statistics show that 3% of men enlisted in the military get divorced each year; 7.8% of women in the military get a divorce every year. And the trend is climbing.

It’s important for us to recognize the heroic acts that all soldiers perform while in uniform. This Memorial Day, I’m also thinking about what happens to them when they return to civilian clothes, to their friends and family back home, and to their health and wellness after they’ve served with such courage. They need us to be there for them to support their transition back to life off the battle field. They have served us too well for too long to not receive as much care as we can possibly provide at they face their own battles back home.

The New York Times article referenced above has narrative and interactive features that detail the year-long deployment of the 87th Battallion in Afghanistan. It’s a tremendous look inside what it means for them troops to be on the battle field and then try to transition back to a home life that feels as foreign to them as the dangerous places where they serve.

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.