Category: yoga

failure, learning, yoga

Leap: My Fearless 92-Year-Old Yoga Student

Christa Avampato
Russell and Mr. Fredricksen from Up, a.k.a. Me and Bob, my yoga 92-year-old yoga student

This post is also available as a podcast.

I arrived at my community yoga class 30 minutes early. An older gentleman was waiting outside of the door. Seeing he walked with a cane, I wondered if he might be in the wrong place.

“Are you here for yoga?” I asked brightly.

“What else would I be here for? Are you the instructor? I’m Bob.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He just walked into the room. He reminded me of Mr. Fredricksen in the movie Up and I was about to be his Russell.

I went down the hall to the ladies room to change and began to panic. You may think yoga teachers are not allowed to panic because we are just supposed to let the teaching flow through us from the mystical universe. Think again. I’ve had an extraordinarily stressful couple of weeks, and my head had been throbbing since lunch. And now I had to figure out how to manage a class with a man who has a cane, and who I think may be triple my age?

“I can’t do this,” I sighed to myself in the mirror.

And then my usually tiny intuition strongly rose up out of my gut, “Stop whining and teach.”

My intuition has grown tired of my self-doubt. I listened. I picked up my bag and went down the hall to our classroom, chucking my entire plan for class right out the window.

My endlessly supportive friend, Tre, had arrived and another regular student would join us a few moments later. As Bob set up his mat I asked him if he had any health issues I should know about.

“None,” he said smiling. “I’m really healthy.”

“Are you sure, Bob?” I asked. “High blood pressure, high cholesterol?”

“Nope. I just want to do what everyone else in the class does.”

“I see you walk with a cane,” I said, letting my voice go up as if it were a question.

“Well, yeah, I had a hip replacement about 15 years ago. I’m probably due for another one soon. But at my age, 92, I can’t complain.”

92. 92? 92! Bob is certainly the oldest ambulatory student I’ve ever taught, particularly in a mixed level community class. For a time I taught on the Geriatric Psych floor at New York Methodist Hospital, but it was a chair yoga class, I had nurses and therapists to assist the patients, and most patients were quite far along their journey with dementia. Teaching with Bob, alongside healthy young women, was a new experience entirely.

I was nervous so I started asking questions to find a way in, to relate. We learned Bob was born in Brooklyn and has lived in New York City all his life except for his years in the Navy during World War II. He now lives just a few blocks away in a rent-controlled walk-up. His 94-year-old brother doesn’t do yoga – not hard enough for him – and goes to the YMCA 3 days a week to swim and bike.“He’s in even better physical shape than me,” he said with a bit of surprise in his voice.

I wish I could tell you I went on to give a brilliant class. I didn’t. I was nervous for Bob the whole time. I rarely give hands on adjustments in these community classes but Bob needed me and I had to be there for him. I struggled to figure out how to honor each of the students and their time in class, giving them the practice they each needed while taking care that Bob didn’t have something terrible happen to him while in my care.Additionally, I wanted to honor and respect Bob’s desire to be independent.

I take the health and protection of my students very seriously, and with this curve ball I found myself improvising all over the place. This place didn’t feel good. I was failing badly.

Towards the end of the class, and I mean the bitter end, I began to find my groove. Better late than never I guess. As we wrapped up and everyone got their belongings together, Bob gave us a tip of his hat as he walked out of the room, cane in hand.

“See you next time,” he called over his shoulder.

No one was more surprised than me. And maybe that’s the lesson I needed to learn from Bob – if you hang in there, especially when you feel yourself failing, and if you rise up and continually try to offer your very best, no matter how good or not good you think it may be, you’ll get through just fine. And you can bring others right along with you.

sports, yoga

Leap: The New York Giants Take Up Yoga in Preparation for the Super Bowl

Christa Avampato
New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning (10) stretches during practice for the NFL Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis February 2, 2012. The New York Giants will play the New England Patriots on February 5. REUTERS/Jeff Haynes

That’s right – the Giants are getting in their Warriors, Down Dogs, and a few Sun Salutations as they prepare for their victory today in Indiana. Actually, they’ve been getting their yoga on all season long thanks to their yoga teacher, Gwen Lawrence. Building strength, gaining flexibility, and honing focus – all benefits of yoga, all needed by pro football players under a tremendous amount of pressure to perform.

So today as you watch Eli Manning pull that football back by his ear in search of the perfect pass to lead his team to victory, you can be sure he’s in that zone of pure concentration and his yoga practice helped him get. See what it can do for you, too, by heading to a free Compass Yoga class. We’d love to share the gift of the practice that help Eli and his teammates perform so well.

Go Giants!

teaching, yoga

Leap: Reflections on My Yoga Beginning at ISHTA

Christa Avampato

“Your way begins on the other side. Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape. Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.” ~ Rumi

This week I began the next leg of my yoga teacher journey with ISHTA. Just entering the studio and taking a seat in the back of the room, I felt a vibration there, an energy of the highest order. It’s a place of supreme acceptance, growth, possibility, and support. It is no accident that on a day when every hour at work seemed to break me down, I would walk into this studio and find the beginnings of another way. One of my fellow teachers termed it as the idea of “a return to wholeness.” And that’s exactly how I felt in that space and in that time, whole.

What I am going through in my 9-5 is a form of tapas, a wringing out or burning away, so that I am ready to absorb the energy of a new place, a place better suited to help me operate at the peak of my authenticity. The warm glow of the lights created the perfect balance with the cool cerulean door at the back of the ISHTA studio where we were all huddled together for our first class.

Wendy Newton, our ISHTA teacher, encouraged us to recognize that our only job in this training, and even in life, is to do our practice, the one that opens us up to yoga so that we can be receptive to our teaching. And this teaching is meant for us, and only us, and it is different for everyone. We are each here on this planet, at this time, to learn something quite specific, and our yoga can lead us to that place. It is a particular teaching, taught in a particular way, that suits our particular soul through this leg of the adventure. We must go in search of it, while also slowing down enough to let it find us.

Rumi, I have found my way to the other side.

healthcare, meditation, teaching, yoga

Leap: ISHTA Yoga Will Be My 2012 Yoga Home

Christa Avampato

After months of deliberation, I finally chose to take the next step in my wellness career and pursue my next level of yoga teacher training. It’s been almost 2 years since I finished my 200-hour training at Sonic Yoga. I got an excellent base from Sonic and I treasure my teachers and friends from the program. After taking Cheri Clampett and Arturo Peal’s therapeutic yoga training at Integral Yoga last summer, I knew I needed my next level of teacher training to be deeply rooted in therapeutics. And so, I chose ISHTA Yoga‘s program.

Last week, yoga teacher Rodney Yee gave a speech at the San Francisco Yoga Journal Conference on yoga and healthcare. His message aligns with my feelings about who I am best equipped to serve in my teaching through Compass Yoga. It’s wonderful that 5% of Americans are practicing yoga, but what about the other 95% who would greatly benefit from it if there were more teachers willing to bring them into the fold? That is where the teaching opportunities of the future lie. The 95% are the students I am meant to serve and the ISHTA program is the best in New York City to help me fulfill that mission.

Many teacher training programs aren’t preparing teachers who can teach those who need special consideration. ISHTA is one of the great exceptions, and though I’ve spent a lot of my time since Sonic teaching and training to help introduce modified yoga and mediation to brand new practitioners, I know I need additional, intensive training to really up my skills. I’m so excited for this next leap with ISHTA!

ISHTA’s program dovetails with my teaching intentions perfectly. This beautiful storm of circumstances fell into place more seamlessly than I ever expected. I begin my first classes at ISHTA on January 31st. Along this next leg of the path, there will be many moments of insight, wonder, and discovery. I promise to share them all with you. Stay tuned! Namaste, baby!

animals, dogs, learning, meditation, teaching, yoga

Leap: My Dog as My Teacher and Healer

Christa Avampato

Buddhists believe that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Native Americans believe that when a soul comes into our lives it is because it has something to teach us and when we lose someone close to us it is a signal we learned all we could from them.

I believe in both philosophies.

A year ago, my dog, Phineas, came into my life unexpectedly. He was found in the woods, abandoned by his owner and starving. He is perfectly trained in every way except one – he has horrible separation anxiety. He isn’t destructive in any physical way – he just cries a lot when I leave the apartment. He will go long stretches of time without making a peep when I leave, but then goes through terrible spurts of discomfort and stress.

On Saturday, I enlisted the help of a trainer through the company Barkbusters. Though pricier than other trainers, I chose them because they specialize in separation anxiety and they come with a lifetime guarantee. Yes, you read that correctly. A lifetime guarantee – they will return as often as I need them to for the remainder of Phineas’s life and help with any behavior challenge we may have wherever we may live. And my trainer is available at any time, day or night, by email or phone. A worthwhile investment. My only wish is that I had found them sooner, though finding them now, at this point in my own healing journey, brought home a very important realization that only now can I understand and appreciate.

I thought Phineas’s anxiety was from the fear that once I left I may never come back. And while that’s the base fear, here’s the nuance that our trainer taught me: Phineas isn’t worried for himself; he’s worried for me.

He’s on security detail and as such, he feels that he needs to protect me and keep me safe so that way I can continue to take care of him. When I go out into the big, scary world, he’s worried I will be harmed because he isn’t there to protect me. He has no way to control the situation and that lack of control mixed with fear is causing his anxiety. He’s taken on the job of being my body-guard and it’s not a role he is equipped for, nor a burden he should be responsible to bear. He hates this job, but he thinks it’s the only way he can assure that he won’t be abandoned again.

Isn’t that wild?!

Not really. I understand that feeling all too well. Dogs and children process information in such a similar way.

When I was a very young child, I was very aware that my father would never be able to take care of me. I knew that my mother was the only one in our household equipped to take care of me until I got big enough to take of myself. I worried constantly that something terrible would happen to my mother and that I’d be left with my father, which effectively meant I’d be on my own to take care of myself before I was ready.

It was a horrible burden to bear – I developed insomnia, headaches, and intense stress. I did my very best to compensate and cope, but as a young child there was no way for me to logically process my fears. I didn’t have the skills to do that. So I worked very hard in school because I linked doing well in school with getting a good job that would give me the income to provide for myself. I fought very hard to become as independent as possible as soon as I could. And while to the outside world I was a wonderfully adapted and well-adjusted child, I would argue that this adaptation and adjustment came at a very dear price. A price I still pay though am now able to articulate, understand, and repay as I heal. My yoga and meditation practices went a long toward than end. They still do.

Phineas and I are in the same boat – different cause, same effect. And if I can help him heal, really heal on a very deep level, then that will go a very long way toward healing my own inner child who still worries that she’ll be abandoned and still struggles to believe that I will always be able to take care of myself. Truly believing this last piece is the key to the confidence it takes to leap into entrepreneurship. Phineas was part of the Universe’s great plan for me and my work.

I thought by adopting Phineas that I was changing his life, and I certainly am doing just that. But he’s also changing mine, far more than he knows. As I watch him at this very moment sleeping peacefully in his bed, I’m even more determined to help him if for no other reason than to thank him for his soul’s incredible sacrifice for the sake of my soul’s healing.

Cesar Millan is famous for saying that he rehabilitates dogs and he trains people. This is certainly the case for me and for Phin. The calmer and more confident I can become through my own yoga and mediation practice, the more I can help him. And his healing will speed my healing. It’s a virtuous cycle that I am finally ready to begin.

dreams, goals, healthcare, yoga

Leap: Our Goals Should Be Impossible

Christa Avampato

“To make your goals effective, you have to fail at them 50% of the time, or they didn’t stretch you far enough.” ~ Chip Wilson, Founder of Lululemon Athletica

Some people think my goal of wanting to dramatically improve the entire healthcare system in the United States through Compass Yoga is just crazy.

Sometimes they look at me with very sympathetic eyes as if to say, “Well isn’t that ambitious.” And then other times they raise their eyebrows in a surprised expression of, “Who does this woman think she is?” My answers are, “Yes, I am ambitious” and “I am someone who cares.”

One of the great blessings and curses of reading so much and spending so much of my time engaged with others is that the problems of the world are my problems. It doesn’t matter if today the problems of the world affect me directly. I know so clearly that eventually they will be my problem – the crummy economy, climate change, soaring healthcare costs, a failing education system. These will be everyone’s problems. We are too interconnected now to turn a blind eye. We cannot live in castles in the sky while their foundations are crumbling here on Earth.

It takes crazy people to bring monumental change. It takes people who take risks, who try and try again undeterred, who reject the idea of business as usual. Business can’t be usual any more. We have too many challenges that need creative solutions. And that goes for politics, education, the environment, international relations, energy policies, and yes, healthcare. What has been is not what can be going forward. We need more passion and more enthusiasm to find better answers.

So do I think impossible goals are worthwhile? You bet I do and I’ll chase my impossible dreams down with every bit of speed I can build. There’s just no way of knowing what’s possible until we give it everything we’ve got. As Nelson Mandela wisely said, “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Go further.

yoga

Leap: New Free Yoga Class from Compass Yoga Starts Tomorrow

Christa Avampato

This year, Compass Yoga will be expanding programming to more locations to serve more people. The board and I are in the midst of a strategic planning process and we can’t wait to share the direction with you! In the mean time, come practice with us at our newest class:

Location: Muhlenberg Branch of the New York Public Library
209 West 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues
Time: every other Thursday beginning Thursday, January 12, 2012 from 6:30pm – 7:30pm
(Dates for the next 3 months are: 1/12, 1/26, 2/9, 2/23, 3/8, 3/22)
Cost: Free
Level: Open – all are welcome from beginner to advanced
Bring: Your own mat or beach towel

All our classes are listed on the Compass Yoga website and if you don’t live in New York City, practice with us through the videos on our YouTube channel.

See you on the mat!

business, yoga

Leap: What All Business Owners Can Learn from Retailer Athleta

Christa Avampato

My friend, Sara, recommended I stop into Athleta to check out their newest location in my neighborhood. I’m not one for fancy yoga retailers, mostly because I’ve found that few of them have products that live up to their hype and because the commercialism around yoga makes me ill. However, Sara knows me well and is one smart lady so I gave it a go. I’m so glad I did! I learned a lot about business as I took a stroll online and in-store.

Tapped in
I tweeted how much I loved their new catalog that arrived in the mail and they tweeted back almost instantly to welcome me into my neighborhood store. This was a good sign. I love socially savvy businesses who pay attention.

Ambiance
The store itself is beautiful. It felt so comfortable the moment I walked inside. A) they have a water bowl for the neighborhood pups (a move that always earns brownie points with me since I’m a dog lover) and B) it has a very rustic design with lots of natural light, warm wooden beams and floors, and very comfortable areas to try on the goods. The staff was helpful but not pushy in the least, a difficult line to tread but Athleta does it beautifully.

The Goods
And the product is amazing. Their Kickbooty pant is the most comfortable piece of clothing I’ve ever out on. AND…finally a yoga clothing company makes clothes in petite, tall, and plus size. They also make street clothes, running, swimming, and general workout clothes and accessories as well. All high quality, all beautiful. The website is very clean, easily navigated, and has great sales.

A few other bonuses:
1.) No-hassle return policy. This means take the product home, put it to the test, and if for any reason it doesn’t stand up, return it with no problems. Seriously. Not only does this policy endear customers to the brand but it’s a huge benefit to Athleta: they will get real live feedback about how to fix their products. They’re learning and pleasing customers. A win all-around!

2.) Yoga teacher discount. Provide your business card and registration card, and you’ll get a very handsome discount on the product. (I provided both my Compass Yoga business card and my Yoga Alliance membership card.) The website site offers a 10% yoga teacher discount on full-priced merchandise.

Business owners from a variety of industries can use Athleta’s example to delight customers and keep them coming back in the door. Yogis, finally a great shopping experience made just for us!

yoga

Leap: Join Me for the 2012 21-day Yoga Challenge with Yoga Journal

Christa Avampato

 “Do your practice and all is coming.” ~ Pattabhi Jois

Can yoga deliver miracles?

There is a lot of discussion about its near miracle effects on our health and well-being. Some people so strongly claim it as a cure-all that it’s easy to believe it is all hype. This weekend, the New York Times ran an excellent article by William J. Broad, whose book The Science of Yoga: The Risks and The Rewards is available next month, about the benefits and hazards of the practice. It should be required reading for everyone who’s even thinking of practicing yoga and certainly for all teachers. This kind of resource has been sorely needed by the yoga community for far too long.

Taking all of these cautions into account, the only way to know if yoga if for you is to give it a go – slowly and gently. And starting today, you can give it a try for free with some of the very best teachers on the planet right from the comfort of your own home. Join me and a few thousand others as we begin the 21-day Yoga Challenge with Yoga Journal. I participated last year and was so incredibly impressed by the online classes that I’ve been looking forward to 2012’s challenge ever since!

The Yoga Journal team has added a few features this year that will make it even better than 2011’s challenge:

1.) Connect online with the worldwide yoga community members who are participating in the challenge

2.) Choose your own practice – beginner or intermediate

3.) Set goals, share them, and get encouragement along the way

Wondering how to get started? The challenge begins today – register on the Yoga Journal site and every day you’ll receive an email with a link to that day’s online class.

If you join, let me know so we can keep each other going for the next 21 days. Let’s do this thing!

adventure, business, career, creativity, New Years Eve, New York, New York City, wishes, writing, yoga

Leap: My 2012 Resolution, Four and a Half Years in the Making

Christa Avampato

In 2007, I graduated from business school, where I wrote a few feature columns for my school’s newspaper thanks to my friend, Alice, who was the Editor-in-Chief. I had always wanted to be a writer but was never sure I was talented enough to make a go of it. I really enjoyed the writing and a lot of my classmates complimented the columns. At graduation, my friend, Stephen, asked me if I intended to keep writing. I smiled, looked down at the ground, and said I wasn’t sure. “You should start a blog,” he said. I laughed. “Who would read it?” I asked. “I would read it,” he said. One reader was enough for me. It was a start, a beginning, and that was really all I needed.

The week after graduation, I sat on the couch in my living room in Charlottesville surrounded by moving boxes, opened Google, and typed in “free blogging software.” Blogger came up. I had an account from when I started my first blog, Eyes and Ears Wide Open, way back in 2004. It was private because I wasn’t sure at that time that I wanted strangers reading about my life. (How funny that seems now that I live much of my life online!) I reactivated my account and started the blog Christa In New York as a way of unleashing a writer who had been kicking around in me for many, many years.

How I learned to write
After a year and a half of bumbling around learning how to write, I decided I wanted to become a really good writer and the only way I knew how to make that happen was to practice every day. And the sure-fire way to make that happen would be to publicly promise as my 2009 resolution that I would write and publish every day. I kept my resolution and in 2009, I wrote every day about hope. My greatest lesson from that writing journey was that the more often we look for hope, the more likely we are to find it.

In 2010, I bundled up all of that hope and put my daily efforts toward crafting an extraordinary life. I discovered the truth that we build an extraordinary life by finding something extraordinary in ordinary moments.

To amp up my extraordinary living, I used 2011 as a year of new beginnings so that I could get into a beginner’s mindset – exploring, experimenting, and tinkering. As 2011 drew to a close, I wondered for a long time about how I could best make use of this beginner’s mindset. Where would I go from here?

Was there an ending in all this beginning?
I wondered if this would be the end of this blog altogether. I wondered if all this beginning was leading me toward an ending of this chapter. To experiment with that idea, I gave up writing on the weekends for a couple of weeks. I missed posting every day so much that I quickly reversed that decision. Four and a half years later, writing has become an integral part of who I am and how I spent my time. It brings me a lot of joy – and that’s the #1 reason I keep at it.

Perhaps another ending was in order. I briefly considered leaving New York and relocating to the west coast. That caused me to look differently at my city. Was I really ready to move? Could I really leave behind 4+ years worth of effort building a life I love? In about a month’s time, I reversed that decision, too. New York is my home, as crazy and unpredictable as it is. It’s where I belong and that’s a joyful thing to feel.

To solve this riddle, I began to look around at the other areas of my life assessing what brings me joy and what doesn’t. I love my yoga teaching and the healthcare field fascinates me. I adore stories – written, spoken, acted, and sung. I’m passionate about doing good work for people who need help and don’t know where or to whom to turn. I’m happiest when I’m making my own choices.

An ending found
The area of my life that seems to deplete me the most is the place where I spend 40+ hours / week. Though I’m incredibly grateful for the financial stability and experience I’ve gained as part of a large company, the work doesn’t inspire me and it’s not the best use of my skills. I’ve made a number of very good friends there whom I’m sure I will know all of my life. I’ve learned so much there, about the economy, the world, and myself. As 2011 drew to a close, I became acutely aware that I have learned all that I want to learn there. It’s time to move on.

I began to look around, applying to jobs that seemed mildly interesting. I interviewed and received a few offers, though in the end they all seemed to be variations on a theme, a theme I already had in my current job. After a few months, I could see myself in those new roles, unhappy with the circumstances and no better off than I am at my current job. If I wanted the job of my dreams, I would have to build it.

A beginning that was here all along
And so I realized that Compass Yoga could provide me with everything I wanted in a job – I could teach, write, be part of the healthcare field, and help people who really needed the help. I had the job I wanted all along. The trick is now to turn how I make a life into making a living.

So there it is, my 2012 resolution: to make the leap from my job into Compass Yoga full-time. It’s going to be a long and winding road, with many different twists, turns, stops, and starts along the way. I’ll be securing my footing along the path that I know I’m supposed to walk even though I’m not yet sure of all the steps I’ll need to take. Every day in 2012, I’ll be writing about this journey and I hope you’ll join me as this path is paved. Welcome to the beginning of a transformation a long time in the making. And happy new year!