Tag: writing

What a month of Ashtanga classes taught me

by rachaelhanel, posted in ashtanga, Inspiration, Yoga

And You Let Me Down

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk Flickr via Compfight cc

I had a stellar month of July in terms of yoga. Lots and lots of Ashtanga!

The final tally:

  • 5 Mysore classes
  • 1 led class
  • 1 weekend workshop

What I learned:

  • Face my challenges head-on
  • Structure pleases me
  • Regular practice = gains in strength
  • I love Ashtanga more than ever!

I live 80 miles from a shala that offers Mysore-style Ashtanga. That distance doesn’t make it practical for me to practice at a shala regularly. Instead, I have to be committed to a home practice (a woman I met at the workshop let me know about the Ashtanga Home Practitioners network on Facebook — that’s already been so helpful!).

But in July I started teaching a class on Monday evenings at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. So I started to think…I could stay overnight on Mondays and go to Lynn Thomasberg’s Mysore class at One Yoga on Tuesday mornings.

So for four weeks, that’s what I did. I was a little nervous the first day with my limited Mysore experience and being in a new space. But I clearly remember the moment during that practice when the endorphins released and I felt buoyant, energized, and happy. That feeling continued throughout the day.

I finished my last Mysore class yesterday and I was a little sad even before it began, knowing it would be my last one for a while. I will miss the addictive positive energy that comes from a challenging class. I’m already trying to figure out ways to make this work during the school year 🙂

(The fifth Mysore class I did was during the Angela Jamison workshop. That week I had done three Ashtanga classes — a first for me!).

Every time I take an Ashtanga class or attend a workshop, I’m newly inspired in my home practice. Thanks to all the practice I did in July, I have a plan for my daily sessions (prior to this I did whatever I felt called to do in the morning, but that was a little too fluid). I created a calendar in which I do something different each day. For now it looks like this:

  • Shortened Ashtanga series (30 minutes)
  • Kapalabhati/Bheemashakti
  • First half primary series
  • Full series
  • 2x sun salutations/finishing postures + workshopping particular asanas

What inspires you, in yoga or in life?

A missed opportunity to send to a Type A

by rachaelhanel, posted in Inspiration, Yoga

I have some Type A traits, but I wouldn’t call myself 100 percent Type A. But the to-do lists, the keeping busy, the many irons in the fire, the packed schedule — check, check, check and check!

I read this article with interest because I felt that in some respects, Mary Laura Philpott was writing to me. But she didn’t address one important aspect: What can a woman do to relieve this pressure she puts upon herself?

Philpott seems to be saying, “I hear ya, girl. Go get ’em.” Basically, keep on keeping on. This passage, in particular, saddened me:

You see yourself the way you think the world sees you, so you value yourself only when you are accomplishing and producing and finishing and succeeding. If you can’t value yourself, then there’s no reason to get up every morning, and if there’s no reason to get up, then … what? You feel untethered, as if someone has turned off gravity and you’ve been spun into infinite space, a black hole that demands, “What’s the point of you?”

I see this a lot in the young women I work with at the university, I see it on social media, I see it in the women I know — women who do not love and value themselves first. Women who look to the outside world for validation. Stay busy, gather public accolades, check off accomplishment after accomplishment, all for outside validation.

Philpott ends with:

You nailed it — all of it.

I know how much you need to hear this.

I can never hear it enough.

Yes, it’s nice to get kudos. I’m not going to turn them down! But yoga has helped me get strong within myself. When the outside validation doesn’t come, I’m OK with that. As a writer, the outside validation rarely comes so you have to do it for yourself. I was rejected for a big grant last year, and in the last week I got two other big rejections. If it were only the outside world’s opinion that mattered, then that opinion is that I suck. But I know I did the best I could do, and that’s the “point of me.” I think Philpott missed an opportunity to encourage women to love themselves first.

 

Yoga’s inner story and outer story

by rachaelhanel, posted in Creativity, Yoga

43712444175_410b3082cc

Photo Credit: davidstewartgets Flickr via Compfight cc 

It can be easy to see what’s on the surface. But what’s beneath? That’s often the key to unlocking understanding.

My theme for my memoir/yoga workshop this weekend is inner story and outer story.

Inner story and outer story is usually the first thing I talk about when I give memoir workshops. A memoir that just stays at the surface — this happened, then this happened, here’s what I looked like, here’s what our house looked like, etc. — doesn’t have any substance. Writers have to dive deep within themselves to discover what all those things meant. How did it change the writer? What transformation took place because of those events?

Writing the inner story is difficult because it takes time and contemplation. We may know we have an outer story, but perhaps we haven’t spent a lot of time articulating on the page what it meant or how it changed our lives. At least that was my case when I wrote my memoir. I knew I had a unique story in that my dad was a gravedigger, but until I started to write I didn’t realize exactly how that upbringing impacted my life. The thinking-to-writing ratio while I was working on the memoir was definitely skewed toward the thinking!

This is why I’m so excited to do this yoga/memoir workshop. Yoga lends itself to looking inward and contemplation. There’s the physical practice of yoga, what we see. If we practice regularly we may see changes to our body — more defined muscles, increased strength, new flexibility. If we let our practice sit there on the outside, like a memoir, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it can be so much more.

It’s when your mind and body are strong when the real transformation occurs. As Kino MacGregor writes in The Power of Ashtanga Yoga: “Strength in yoga is an integration of the sum of the body, mind, and soul in a way that gives access to something much larger than any individual part.”

Screen Shot 2018-09-26 at 8.08.22 AM
Kino MacGregor, Ashtanga practitioner and founder of OMStars yoga TV network. Photo from @kinoyoga on Instagram.

For memoir, the strength is in the combination of outer story and inner story. To borrow Kino’s words, that is going to give access to something much larger than the individual parts.

My friend, the 24-Hour Bicycle Challenge champion!

by rachaelhanel, posted in Creativity, Inspiration
Screen Shot 2018-06-17 at 4.23.35 PM
Becky Fjelland Brooks. Photo by Jackson Forderer, Mankato Free Pres. 

Do you want to be inspired? Read on! Otherwise, just skip this.

I’ve known Becky Fjelland (Davis) Brooks for I don’t know…13, 14 years? She’s that type of friend who you don’t even remember first meeting…you just feel like you’ve been friends from birth. I DO know that I started biking with her in 2007 and in that year, she invited me to join her writing group, which had already been meeting for about three years.

This is a woman a generation older than me (she technically could be my mom, though she would have been a very young mom, lol!). However, she could always kick my butt on the bike! Which from Day 1 earned my respect and admiration. Even though she could kick my butt, she didn’t act like it. Becky is a woman that wants ALL women to bike and be active and is the hugest supporter of women and fitness — ZERO competition! I can’t tell you how many times she’s ridden with me WAY more slowly than she could have — but she just wanted to be supportive and have social time!

On Sunday, June 17, this woman won her age group at the National 24-Hour Challenge bike race in Caledonia, Michigan! Did I mention that her age group is 60-64?! Becky rode her bike for 24 hours, only stopping briefly for bathroom breaks and snacks. She completed 349.5 miles during that time to set the age-group record.

Less than three years ago, Becky suffered a brain aneurysm as she was preparing to go out for a December ride. This 24-hour challenge was her goal as she recovered.

“My son and I were kind of joking, ‘In two years, we’ll go back to the 24-hour race.’ It was a joke — but also a carrot,” she told the Mankato Free Press in the June 15 edition.

The one and only time I could keep up with Becky was when I went out with her on her first rides after her aneurysm, in the summer of 2016. I told her, “The only time I can keep up with you is when you’re recovering from a brain explosion!” LOL!

Becky is the ultimate role model. This is precisely what I love about her:

“People write things off when they get to 50, 60 years old and think they’re not going to get back,” she said. “But we can. We can do more than we give ourselves credit for. I made training a priority. I made getting in shape a priority. And it worked.”

I’m training for a fall marathon and Becky is a major inspiration. If she can get on her bike for 24 hours at the age of 61, surely I can run for 5 hours at the age of 43. If she trained hard during a harsh Minnesota winter, I can get out there for training runs during a Minnesota summer.

No excuses. We all have the power to change our lives, to change our level of fitness.

Let Becky lead the way!

Becky is also a super impressive middle-grade/young-adult/essay writer. Read more of her writing here.

 

Meditation for writers

by rachaelhanel, posted in Creativity, Inspiration

From the wonderful Brevity blog! I’ve recently introduced meditation into my own life, so this is perfect timing. I look forward to using meditation specifically to spark creativity and help me set and achieve writing goals.

By Sweta Srivastava Vikram At the 2014 Academy Awards, Robert De Niro’s intro of the best screenplay nominees caught the attention of many. “The mind of a writer can be a truly terrifying thing”, he said, before continuing, “Isolated, neurotic, caffeine-addled, crippled by procrastination and consumed by feelings of panic, self-loathing and soul-crushing inadequacy. And that’s on a good day.” […]

via How Meditation Can Help a Writer — BREVITY’s Nonfiction Blog

Stay tuned!

by rachaelhanel, posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Yoga

GMAC class photo

I have some exciting opportunities coming up that combine yoga and writing, two of my passions! The combination of the creative and the physical can spark new ideas and inspiration. I will post information as it becomes available! But I will give you a sneak peek now. This opportunity involves…

* A weekend

* A weekend in a really awesome, beautiful place

* Plenty of time for individual writing and reflection