Muscle Memory

We’ve recently started a new brewing regiment at Starbucks. Now; I’ve been brewing coffee for about 4 years at Starbucks, so I have some hard set muscle memory on how to do it. I always scoop the ground coffee directly into the brew basket and press brew. Simple.

The new method is something like this:
1. Scoop coffee beans into grinder.
2. Grind coffee.
3. Empty urn of old coffee
4. Put ground coffee into brew basket.
5. Press brew.

Not terribly difficult. However. After the 4th time of scooping coffee BEANS into a filter without grinding, I realized that I needed to develop some new muscle memory to make brewing coffee as mindless as it was before.

In our yoga practice we do the same thing. Once we’ve practiced downward dog one way for an entire practice, we’ve already built up a routine on how to get into it. When we come back to our mat the next day, our brain shortcuts our set up of downward dog to the way that we did it yesterday. The next day: same thing. And the pattern is cemented.

If you are practicing the pose correctly, this muscle memory is a great thing! It gets you safely into and out of each posture. It’s how we are able to advance in our practice, because we no longer have to worry about the placement of our feet, and can instead dedicate that memory capacity to a lift of the sit bones, or some other aspect of the asana.

However, if you are doing the posture incorrectly, that muscle memory is a bitch. It tricks you into thinking you are doing the posture correctly, every time. And it’s IMPOSSIBLE to fix. Well, not impossible. But your body is going to scream at you “This is wrong! This is HARD! That is not supposed to bend that way!” You need to hit the reset button, to get to a new normal.

This muscle memory is a great reason to start practicing with integrity. Who cares if you can get your forehead to the knees in forward fold if your spine is rounded and compressing every single vertebrae on the way down there? Start with a flat back, an empowered core and your hamstring will open eventually. Build a foundation to your practice so that you start strong and build stronger. I promise it’s worth it.

What postures do you turn on autopilot for? Are there adjustments that you’ve been working on for a while? I’m currently in a battle with some hyper-mobile shoulders in downward dog. Engage, engage, engage.

1/30 (hopefully)

Why work sucks…

The boss can ask me to do anything, like roll $400 of dimes, nickels and pennies, and not even say a thank-you. She can keep me WAY longer than expected, or required, and I can miss the yoga class I was expecting to go to this morning. Lame. So difficult to cultivate bliss when you are swimming in pennies.

Practice 1/30…

tonight? hopefully?

Beginnings…

The search for ananda.

Ananda, in Sanskrit, translates to the highest possible form of bliss, and the power of ecstasy itself and is my favourite part of the anusara yoga invocation. My journey over the next year, culminating in 27 days of yoga teacher training in Bali, is a search for just that; the essence of happiness. What will I do with my life to achieve and cultivate bliss that is pervasive and consistent regardless of situation? I hope that the focus and dedication I achieve through constant yoga practice (hopefully!) can provide some answers to this ultimate question.

Why blog about it?

I was working at a different Starbucks today and a coworker asked me what I did outside of work. I started to explain about the 30 day challenge that I was beginning on Tuesday, when she stopped me to ask: is that it? Just do yoga everyday for 30 days? And when she put it that way, it didn’t seem like quite as big of challenge. But it’s not just about the physical practice of yoga, being on the mat for 30 days in a row. It’s taking the struggles and success from in class and applying it to each and every day. Hopefully, through thoughtful reflection in the form of writing I can make this transformation a little easier. To cultivate bliss each and every day. And then tell you about it.

Namaste.