Posts Tagged ‘accessibility’
a pain in the asana
this is not my spine
Okay, so one of the biggest changes in my life in recent months: I’ve stopped practicing asana.
I have a chronic and persistent back condition. After a few years of intermittent back pain, three years ago I was diagnosed with degerative disc disease (the disc between my L5 and sacrum had degenerated and the vertebrae had started to fuse together). I’ve managed it with chiropractic treatments, strengthening exercises and a constant practice of awareness. And I continued to persist with my asana practice. After all, it was my practice, and it was essential to my physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Despite my efforts, my back periodically went “out” (I still don’t really know what that means) and I couldn’t pinpoint it to a specific activity. It just seemed to happen. But a couple of months ago, I did a twist wrong and my back went out. O.U.T. I was in acute pain for two weeks and it took multiple chiro visits and intensive therapy to get myself back to normal. This was the first time that I had seen a direct connection between my practice and my pain, and it freaked me out.
Then my chiropractor gave me the ultimate prescription: no asana (well, she said “no yoga,” but you know, whatever). Since my practice inspires my teaching, I cut back on my teaching as well, only offering one super gentle community class and working with a few private students. On my own, I admit that I cheat sometimes and get a little crazy with Tadasana (Mountain Pose). I also haven’t abandoned Savasana, and anything that involves piles of blankets, blocks and bolsters.
But in the past few months, I’ve been in a place of inquiry: What is my practice? What does asana mean to me? What is yoga? Continue Reading
Prime advertising real estate (image via flavorwire.com)
Last week’s corporate-sponsored Yoga at the Great Lawn event in NYC has been attracting quite a bit of press. Yesterday’s NYT blog article took a look at the corporate angle of the event. “This would have never happened without corporate support,” said Sascha Lewis, a co-founder of FlavorPill, the NYC cultural guide which organized the event.
It was advertised as a free class, and as such needed corporate sponsorship. The distributed mats (which every registered person was supposed to receive) were branded with the JetBlue logo, a small gesture which in fact positions yoga mats as desirable retail space. adidas, which didn’t appear on the official literature but had a presence, since the event’s primary teacher, Elena Brower, is an adidas yoga ambassador (and is apparently making efforts to help adidas deliver their sustainability yoga wear line ~ I thought their previous ambassador accomplished that task…)
On the one hand, it’s great that this event happened and so many people, especially first-timers, were able to experience yoga in a grand setting. However, given the scope and ambition of the event, I have to question the intention behind these corporate interests in yoga. They claim they want to bring yoga to as many people as possible, but I’m not entirely convinced that’s their main interest.
The event accomplished the feat of being the largest yoga class ever recorded, even though there wasn’t much of a class. The practice was cancelled shortly after it started, due to the rain, and the disappointed practitioners lugged “their soggy JetBlue yoga mats and their SmartWater bottles and their ChicoBags filled with a few goodies” (according to the NYT blog post) out of the park.
“The yoga community is now merrily two-stepping the American way, with corporate logos,” observed the NYT blog. It then went on to ask if this was even a bad thing. Given the culture that yoga has landed in, it certainly seems inevitable. But there are ways to cross the line. At the Yoga at the Great Lawn event, Well+GoodNYC noted, “A single row of Who’s Who yoga teachers like Sadie Nardini, Sarita Lou, and Duncan Wong sat like Adidas-branded Buddhas, all in matching white tanks.” The shiny yoga elite, dressed alike in their branded uniforms… it’s kind of a creepy picture.
I wonder, do we have to do this dance? We all know it’s a dance. You really can’t convince me that, other then sponsoring an event with a guaranteed captive audience of 10,000, do these companies embody yogic values? JetBlue would like to co-opt the openness and transparency associated with yoga by guaranteeing “no blackout dates, no seat restrictions” on its frequent-flier program. It’s nice of adidas to sponsor a high-profile yoga teacher, offer free yoga classes around the world and develop a line of sustainable yoga wear ~ but its other business practices include endorsing the slaughter of kangaroos (an endangered species) in Australia and sweatshops in Asia. Can we separate these actions from its endorsement of yoga?
Elena Brower indicates that “the notion that capitalism and yoga are in conflict is old-think. ‘The companies are making it possible for all these thousands of people to have this experience. This is what we need,’” she said. I’m going to step forward and say that I’m pretty old-school in being skeptical of corporate motivations for sponsoring large scale yoga events, and I’d prefer to create community from a grassroots level, and introduce people to yoga without having to woo them with free branded mats and bottled water.
In the yoga community, there has been a lot of discussion about the pay-what-you-can model for classes and studios. But why should only asana practices be available and accessible on a donation basis? timeless publishing, a yoga micropress based in the mountains of BC, is trying out an innovative experiment in sustainable publishing which will make the wisdom of yoga accessible to anyone who seeks it.
The press’ latest release, a reprint of their classic Time to be Holy, is available as a print-on-demand book and downloadable PDF. And for the next 21 days, it’s available on a pay-what-you-can basis (from June 16 until July 7). If you’re feeling generous, you can donate as much as you want, and if your budget is tight, you can chip in as little as $1.
timeless publishing is aware that yoga is a practice of choice and responsibility, whether you’re on the mat or consuming media. Their approach to printing the yogic teachings is as conscientious and compassionate as the yoga practices themselves. “Never before have our personal choices and business practices had such an enormous impact on our environmental and global connections,” they say on their website. “‘Sustainable publishing’ for us means that on one hand we are reducing our ecological footprint by becoming a carbon neutral publisher; and on the other hand, we’re creating a sustainable financial model in today’s print industry.”
Time to be Holy is a collection of writing from Swami Sivananda Radha, a spiritual leader who dedicated her life to interpreting the ancient wisdom of yoga for Western minds. The material is drawn from satsang (a devotional service inspired by the ancient yogic tradition; also interpreted as a community gathering for yogis on the spiritual path) talks that Swami Radha gave at Yasodhara Ashram, and the tone is conversational and wise. Organized into thematic chapters, the topics covered range from the spiritual search, to self-worth, to service and beyond. rather than being an instructional guide or yoga philosophy primer, the book invites reflection on how we can live our lives with authenticity and grace. It’s a practical and inspiring book that’s relevant to anyone on the yogic path.
image via speakingoffaith.org
My favourite radio show, Speaking of Faith (public radio’s conversation about religion, meaning, ethics and ideas) have rebroadcast their 2006 interview with the highly inspiring yoga teacher, Matthew Sanford. I believe the show will be broadcast on public radio in the US on Sunday morning (May 30), but it’s available on their website as well.
Matthew Sanford was in a car accident when he was 13, breaking his back – among countless other bones in his body – and losing the use of his lower body. He later discovered, and went on to teach, yoga. He also published Waking, a memoir about his experience and teaching. Krista Tippett, the host of SOF, is a wonderful interviewer and she draws the best out of her subjects. They talked about the mind-body relationship, grieving, the languaging around “disability” and “ability,” and the core silence in all of us.
This is what she had to say about the experience in SOF’s weekly newsletter:
For over a quarter century, as a result of a car accident that killed his father and sister, he has been in a wheelchair. Yet I’ve rarely sat across from a person so alive, a body so palpably whole and wholly energetic as his. He has knitted his mind and body back together again over a quarter century, wresting wholeness through layers of cultural denial.
As we speak, Matthew Sanford makes me aware of the seamless cooperation of my mind and uninjured body, a synergy most of us take completely for granted. I stand up and walk as soon as the desire crosses my mind; I gesture with my hands to illustrate an idea I am passionate about; I shake my foot as my own engagement in conversation rises.
This kind of fluid connection was severed in Sanford. Yet as he struggled to come to terms with his body’s new realities during years of recovery and violent corrective surgeries, he encountered another kind of mind-body connection that our culture practices instinctively, reflexively. We celebrate those who battle adversity, triumph over obstacles, beat the odds. We love the 80-year-old man who runs a marathon, the injured hero who never gives up pursuing the technology that will enable him to walk again. This is the mind-body connection translated as a battle of will over matter.
This month is the first annual Great Canadian Yoga Stretch, a fundraising and awareness building campaign for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. It operates in a manner similar to many fundraising campaigns: participants set their “stretch goal” (anything from finishing their first yoga class to mastering a difficult pose) and ask their friends, coworkers and relatives to sponsor them as they work to achieve it.
The objective is to promote the healthy benefits of yoga and to raise money for research and programs for people with vision loss and blindness. All the funds raised will go towards fostering health and wellness in Canadians with vision loss, including nutrition counselling, independent living skills training, and fitness and exercise programs.
“I was born blind in one eye, so this event spoke to me,” said ambassador Will Blunderfield, a Vancouver-based yoga teacher and musician. “As a baby, my mother knew that there was something different about me. I had surgery when I was two years old to correct the blindness in my right eye.”
While I was scrolling around the GCYS website and researching the event, I came across some resources on yoga for people who are partially sighted or blind. I realized that I had never even considered the challenges that somebody without sight would face in a yoga class. As a yoga teacher who teaches in my community and believes in making yoga accessible to all, I was very humbled.
Talking with Will, I saw that he had a similar realization. Even though he has “recovered” from blindness, thanks to the research and programming of organizations like CNIB, he has never had partially sighted or blind people in any of his yoga classes.
“Doing events like this make me realize that yoga isn’t as accessible as it could be,” he said. “It makes me think about how we can work to include everyone.”
Will had some ideas for ways to open up the practice. “As a musician, my classes are very sound-oriented. I do my best to give clear, easy-to-understand alignment cues, and once students are in the pose, I use a lot of “feeling” and “descriptive” language (for example, “like an eagle in flight,” “triumphantly lift your heart as you lower your shoulders”). Being clear with our alignment cues and using visceral descriptive phrases I think is key for leading classes for people with vision impairment. Also encouraging the whole class to soften/close their eyes can be a unifying practice, encouraging all of us to listen more closely to both the instructions and the breath.”
I realize that the GCYS isn’t about raising money so blind people can do yoga; it’s not as simplistic about that. It’s about raising awareness about healthy living, and raising funds for a variety of programs and research for vision. However, the event has succeeded in challenging my assumptions about the accessibility and availability of yoga, and seeing that there is another population who may be in need but can’t participate because of barriers.
What you can do:
- It’s not too late to register for the GCYS!
- Check out some GCYS tips for yoga practitioners and specifically for the vision impaired.
- Make a donation to the CNIB.
- If you’d like to sponsor an individual, EcoYogini has taken on the challenge and is blogging about her experience.
