Hoist Up the John B Sail

I always thought I was pretty good at remembering students' names. I meet a lot of people every week through yoga and improv, but I make special intention to remember the students who come to my classes over and over again. Sometimes -- often, I'd even say -- I'm successful.

Last weekend when I was in New York, I took Frank Mauro's class at Om. (He's awesome if you don't already know.) I've only taken his class maybe a handful of times (I know I said he was awesome, but it's not like the pickings are slim in NYC), and it's been a year since I was last in the city. He looked right at me before class began and unceremoniously said, "Lauren, right?"

Damn. Maybe he's got a photographic memory, or something like that. But honestly? I think this man's mind is clean. Makes me wonder if there are any song lyrics in there, like there are in mine.

See how the main sail sets
Call for the captain ashore
Let me go home

I loved going back. It felt like home in a lot of ways. Until I felt again why it's not. I love New York like old boyfriends who shall go unnamed. It's very real, and very passed.

I visited my good friend Samantha -- one of several whose absence I've really felt in the last year -- on Friday evening. At one point, she asked me to hand her an old journal to look something up. I had given it to her years before when she was about to take a big trip back to Australia, where she's from. On the first page, I'd written:

You can never go home again. But the truth is you can never leave home, so it's okay.
- Maya Angelou

And it hit me: home has nothing to do with geography at all. It's a feeling, a truth. And in my case, I can get there as truly from a full listen to Pet Sounds as I can from five minutes in Union Square Park. Or Zilker Park, for that matter.

For example. I mean, the possibilities are endless. All roads lead to Home. Some probably just take longer than others.

"This is Now, now." - Col. Sanders to Lord Helmet

I was really hungry when I got off my first flight a few minutes ago. I'm in Chicago now, and I don't leave for LaGuardia for another three hours. So I passed on a quickie Quizno's to sit down at this Chili's with my laptop and some food on an actual plate.

Here are the songs I've heard so far in the course of my lunch: Adia, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Hey Jealousy, Daughter, Ordinary World. This is all musak now. Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam is musak.

But the Pearl Jam thing is better left for a separate post because what I was to share is this: I can't stop thinking about how these were all songs from when I was in high school. And I'm realizing, in a way math can never really indicate, exactly how old I am. Chronology tells me I'm 31; KCHLI is telling me the difference between me then and me now.

Not that I have a problem with getting older. I like it. I'm grateful for it. I think back to what I was like when these songs were playing in my 1985 Buick -- whose skinny steering wheel I could turn with my pinky finger -- and thank god I am not that person anymore. My tastes have changed. I started liking Brussels sprouts and stopped wearing mom jeans. I'm taller, and my body is different. (I was a late bloomer and didn't get my height til 18.) All my cells have died and reproduced -- probably a couple times -- since the mid-'90s, so physically I'm kind of a whole new organism.

The point is, when I think back to the person I was at 17, she seems like a stranger. A different person altogether. And I can remember being that age and imagining what I would be like at 30 -- what I would be doing, where I would be living, if I would be married. She seemed like a different person to me then, too: Future Lauren. What would Future Lauren be like if I could meet her? It never felt like I was her.

In fact, I used to do this little mental experiment from the time I was 4 or 5. And looking back, remembering the thoughts I thought then, that little girl seems just as foreign to me now as I did to her then -- even though her thoughts were mine.

It's encouraging, in a way. It's so hard to stay in the present -- with this breath, in this moment -- before my mind runs off to some imaginary situation in the future or the past. But sitting here in the airport listening to all this terrible music, it's suddenly so real to me how un-real the past and the future are: they're mental constructs. It's one thing to read it in an eastern philosophy book. It's another to realize it's why those young doppel-gangers don't seem like Me.

Yep, the only Me I know is the one who just polished off this black bean burger and is feeling full.

Big Wisdom. Small Package.

I'm often told I'm a positive person. Sometimes it even annoys people. But usually when I talk to myself in front of a mirror, the voice I hear is critical. Even if it's not something major... maybe just, "Time to cut your hair, Lauren." Or, "How long has that chocolate been on your face?"

Of course, sometimes the voice is much more of a meanie, making comments that really hit below the belt. But while I know it wasn't always like that, I'm pretty sure it never sounded like this.

And why not??

5 Things I Will Admit a Year After Leaving New York

I say "admit" because though I know these things to be true, I am not necessarily proud of them. But the first one -- yeah, there's definitely some Austin hubris here:

1. Breakfast Tacos Beat the Pants Off Bagels
I love New York bagels. I am snobby about them. Not quite as snobby as Murray's, who won't toast theirs. No. I like it toasted -- an everything bagel with copious amounts of real cream cheese that I can roll my eyes at and scrape off onto the foil, only to rub the last bites into it later.

But breakfast tacos? It's no contest, people. We are talking about a Taco of Breakfast. We are talking about eggs, cheese, beans, potato and avocado, depending on how you like it, in a freshly made tortilla. And everybody knows whatever has avocado in it, wins.

2. I'm Starting to Forget That Owning a Car Is a Luxury, Even in a Town Where You Need One
One time when I was living in Brooklyn, I rented a car so I could drive to Connecticut for a yoga training. All told, it was cheaper than taking the train, given my teaching schedule that weekend.

So one blistery Saturday morning, instead of leaving an hour ahead due to slow weekend trains and a four-avenue walk through snow, I left only 20 minutes early to teach my class before leaving town. I walked 14 paces from the front door of my building to the car, put my stuff down in the front seat, turned on the heat, and drove comfortably all the way to my destination. I arrived at class warm, dry and happy. And I was amazed. Because having a car is an amazing thing, really.

That sentiment stuck with me for many months upon moving back to Texas. Even in traffic, even when I'm late, even when everyone around me is being mean -- I would just sit there thinking, "I am in a freaking car right now. I am not walking or sweating next to many other humans on a subway."

Now not a week goes by without switching on some Deva Premal to assuage my road entitlement issues.

3. I Don't Take Yoga Classes As Much As I Used To
I still haven't figured out why this is. The classes in Austin are great. And I love practicing with other people. I haven't even tried all the teachers I keep hearing about in this town. Yet for weeks now I've had the lineup down of all NYC classes I'm going to hit when I go back this weekend. What's up with that?

4. I Don't Read As Much As I Used To
Two words: subway commute. There were definitely advantages.

5. I Have a Sense of Community Here
This is probably the number one thing I was missing in New York. I had many, many acquaintances and a handful of the best friends I'll ever know. But very few of them really knew each other. It wasn't like 'Sex and the City' where we hung out all the time as a group. No, my inner circle was very fragmented. But it seemed like everyone's was.

It's not like that in Austin. Everywhere I go, I see someone I know, and they are with someone else I already know. And then we all have coffee. Because, somehow, there is time to do that.

Hmm. I had only breakfast tacos vs. bagels and the car thing in mind when I started writing this post. I thought it would be a funny one. Funny-cute, not funny-ha-ha. But now the only thing I'm smiling about is the great fortune I've had in my life.

It's a nice reminder because this has been a tough week. And when you're swimming laps in your own bullshit, there's nothing like a little gratitude to get you back on dry land.

Journey or Mission?

When I lived in New York, my friend Dave and I would go on these adventures around the city. Sometimes it was just for a walk, but you never know what can happen on the streets in that town. It was one of my favorite things to do.

Before we left his apartment, we would set our intention clearly: mission or journey? A mission means we have somewhere to get to, something to accomplish: We will get one of those sesame chocolates from Kee before it closes. Or, we have all these errands to run, but we're getting to the MoMA today.

Missions were always pretty fun. It was like a video game: we moved the avatars of ourselves throughout the city, picking up extra lives (coffee) and finagling roadblocks (re-routed subways, street fairs, camels inexplicably in the middle of Manhattan) to get to the goal.


But journeys were even better. A journey meant we were clear that there was no goal, no end point. Instead, we'd just get on a path and see where it took us. That's when we would end up places we hadn't been before. That's when the iPod splitter came in handy. That's when we ended up on the ferry to Staten Island, only to come right back again; or actually stopped to watch the street performers in Washington Square Park and heard an acoustic version of Gnarls Barkley's 'Crazy' from two talented dudes who quite clearly were.

I was thinking about mission versus journey in my practice yesterday, and in the class I taught last night. If you see a challenging pose as a mission, it's usually over as soon as you get into it. The path ends when the mission is accomplished -- and you fall out.

Missions can be stressful, especially when we get close to accomplishing them. Even when it's not ours -- it might be Harrison Ford's mission -- we hold our breaths and clench our teeth or squeeze our eyes shut when he almost gets to that Ark. It's very ingrained.

I still hold my breath sometimes kicking up into handstand -- which is probably why I can't balance there for more than a few seconds. But when I think of handstand as a journey, somehow it stretches out, getting fuller and deeper and longer.

It's the same in improv. No one wants to see your effort. If you're trying to make us laugh, we don't want to. We want to see you on a journey -- and we know you're on one when you're making yourself laugh too, even if we can only see it in your eyes. It's he difference between inventing and discovering. And for me, that's the great joy of improvising.

But like handstand, I can't always find it onstage. And I often lose it as soon as I'm there -- falling out of the moment with breath tightly held. But maybe the falling -- those failed missions -- are part of the journey too.

I'm heading back to New York in a couple weeks. It's the first time I've been back since moving away nearly a year ago. I'm sure there will be more journeys -- and more missions. And though the lesson first occurred to me there, I know I don't need a city that large or unpredictable to keep teaching me the difference. I don't need a yoga mat or an audience either. I suppose all I really need is breath.

But it sure is fun to switch up the arena.

Ah, Misbehavior...

In Maestro, players are encouraged to misbehave. It's part of the show.

This is elimination-style improv. There are about 12 players who take turns improvising scenes, and at the end of each one the audience scores the scene by applause on a scale of 1-5. Players in the scene win that score, and we progressively eliminate the lowest-scoring players until there is just one left: the Maestro.


The players all wear numbers, which is how the directors always address them.

"Stand up, Number 3," a director might say. Or, "Tell us your secret fear, Number 9." The directors are the ones who set up the scenes, drawing numbers out of a bucket to get however many players they need.

But an improviser who's not officially in a particular scene might enter anyway. Sometimes it's to support, like playing a background restaurant patron if it's clear we're in a cafe.

But sometimes it's to misbehave -- like entering as someone or something that really won't move the story forward. It'll just get a quick laugh and then stagnate what's happening onstage.

Still, the misbehavior does get that initial laugh. So if you do it good-naturedly, it's worth coming out. Because the director will always send you back, and the scene can go on and develop into a good story -- as opposed to a series of gags that seem entertaining, but are ultimately unsatisfying.

So, if you enter with a one-liner, you'll probably hear, "Thank you, Number 5," from the director as he waves you back offstage. You got your laugh, you were acknowledged, you were sent back. And the story goes on.

It's really a lovely thing, this misbehavior. It can make the show when it's done right -- when there's trust between the directors and the players. Players can take risks because they know the directors have their backs and won't let the scene go awry. And directors are grateful to the misbehavers for bringing color to the show.

I think of emotions that way a lot. As soon as I feel jealously or attachment creep up, I give it its due head-nod. "Thank you, Jealously," I say to myself, waving it back into the wings of my mind-proscenium. I'm grateful for the color, and then life goes on.

So long as I can remember to wave it back -- and to laugh.

Ride the Wave of Change (dot org)

Two years ago my friend Meaghan and I taught a yoga retreat together in Costa Rica. It was an amazing experience. Afterward, we stuck around for an extra week to surf, slackline and beach bunny it up.

One day we were packing up our beach gear a little closer to sunset than usual to head back to the hostel. It was getting dark fast. Really fast. So we took what seemed like a shortcut through this bamboo forest. A heavy longboard slung between us, Meaghan walked in front as I tried to keep pace from the rear. We had about five minutes left before it would be difficult to see at all (ah, jungle life), and I had no idea how long this path would meander before spitting us back onto the road. Or if in fact it would spit us back onto the road.

We were lost, and not sure if the situation was improving or getting worse. (That's what it means to be truly lost, isn't it?)

I was getting scared and was certain the feeling would go away if I knew Meaghan wasn't. I'd feel less alone as I tripped over the tree roots in my flip flops behind her. Meaghan never really seems to be scared, I thought to myself. She's a pretty brazen girl and keeps a strong pace forward in life -- and on this trail. So I called up to her, "Hey Meaghan, you scared?"

"Yup!" She said it brightly, without missing a beat.

We both started laughing. She knew exactly what I had been feeling, and it was hilarious that she didn't give me the answer I'd wanted.

But then I did feel less alone, if not less afraid. At least we were facing the fear together. It was real, but so was our togetherness. That, and the big surfboard we had to defend ourselves if some wild animal showed up.

Meaghan is on my mind a lot this week. She's riding her bike across the freaking country. After putting all her stuff in storage and flying out to Seattle last week, she's now on Day 2 of pedaling back to her hometown in Connecticut. She's doing it to raise awareness for sustainable living and funds for three different charities (and she's already done a lot of that -- check out ridethewaveofchange.org).

I keep thinking about all the fear she's going to conquer along the way. It makes me miss her a lot. Even though I'm not pulling up the rear, I still sort of am. Go, Meaghan, go!

In Which I Consider Whether or Not I Am a Sham...

Doing some research for an article I want to write, I came across this piece in Bitch Magazine called "Eat, Pray, Spend." It challenges the rise of "priv-lit" -- or self-help books that target women, telling them that they need to do x, y and z to attain happiness/enlightenment/freedom.

The authors, Joshunda Sanders and Diana Barnes-Brown (the former lives here in Austin, and the latter in my last hometown of Brooklyn - kinda weird) have a central criticism: that you can't even get started on x, y and z if you don't have cash to spend. That according to Oprah and Elizabeth Gilbert -- who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, a best-seller that chronicled her year-long pilgrimage to find herself over food in Italy, yoga in India and love in Bali -- wealth is a precursor to finding happiness. In other words, good luck getting enlightened if you can't afford a monthly yoga pass and a spinach smoothie from the Daily Juice.

They argue that this claim is just another consumerist ruse -- a way to get women (since that's who priv-lit primarily targets) to feel freedom by spending their own money frivolously and abandoning their real responsibilities -- like family and bill payments.

Now, there's no question these things are luxuries. We all have to eat, but we don't all have to hire a personal chef. Or even buy fancy cookbooks. We all need to exercise, but really all you need for that is gravity -- not a gym membership or spin classes. And we all need to ask the hard questions: What is the meaning of life? Why am I suffering? How can I be free of this?
... But do we need a week in Costa Rica for that? Or even a $20 yoga class?

However, this is how I make my living -- teaching yoga and running retreats -- so it got me thinking. Am I being irresponsible?

As I seriously considered it, it was hard not to get immediately defensive. But I set aside ego and identity for a moment and here's what I came up with:

The cycle of consumerism is possible because we live in a more primal cycle of wanting, of desire. A Buddhist monk will tell you that, same as any western economist. The practice of yoga, or any meditation, is to make that cycle of desire more conscious. We need only to see the man behind the curtain to realize that the wizard doesn't in fact have any power over us. Trouble is, that curtain is a real bitch to pull back. We have to work at it every day, consistently. That's why it's a practice. You don't need anything but yourself for this. Not even a yoga mat. As Joseph Campbell says, you just need to "follow your bliss."

But as with any effort, community certainly helps. So does a guide. So does a hero and a hero's journey. It's anthropological. Campbell spent his life demonstrating the universality of this. We have myths and a collective unconscious for a reason. But just when the mythological arc of Siddhartha Buddha or Jesus Christ or Arjuna becomes a too esoteric, too out of reach -- we get Elizabeth Gilbert. Someone we can identify with.

Of course, unlike the Buddha or Jesus or Arjuna, Gilbert has to make a buck in the modern world. And her journey seems like the answer. Book marketers know this. So do movie marketers. It's very sexy, so some readers will inevitably miss the point for the sexiness. Suddenly, it seems as though a journey like Gilbert's is the last thing they'll ever want -- the want that, once won, will end all wanting. And Eat, Pray, Love becomes another cog in the consumerist wheel.

But that doesn't mean there's not something truthful inside. Just like, whether you're Christian or not, there's something truthful about the golden rule. You don't have to believe Jesus rose from the dead to get that treating others how you'd like to be treated really does make the world a groovier place.

In their article, Sanders and Barnes-Brown quote an anonymous high-end life coach, who admits her industry lives by a secret maxim: "Don't fix the client." Yet these life coaches with wealthy clientele continue to offer perfection and happiness. And people -- particularly women -- keep investing.

But that's decidedly not what I'm doing. I don't have all the answers. In fact, I don't have any. I'm certainly not free from attachment or desire. I'm not enlightened. But I still teach because what I do have is a practice, and that's what I teach from.

I don't offer answers or perfection. I offer presence. I offer practice. And anyone can find those things on their own. So it's a pretty humbling experience when people choose to find them with me.

The irresponsibility would be in fooling myself otherwise.

Being vs. Doing

So Asaf, who I mentioned in my last post, has been taking my yoga classes the last couple months. We've had a nice trade going (like my logo over there on the right rail? Me too. Thanks, Asaf!), and he has commented several times that our teaching styles are similar.

Last Saturday, I finally got to take his class. And I agree with him: we do have similar styles. In fact, I couldn't stop scribbling about the crossovers of what we were learning -- Physicality of Improv is the name of the class -- and yoga. The biggest of which is being vs. doing.

We did this solo exercise where the improviser would enter the space with some crazy physicality. Not a character, per se, but just a specific exploration of speed, space, tension, etc. So everybody looked a little wacky. And it was enjoyable to see each person move around the space in his own peculiar way, connect with the audience and say, "Hello." We were just watching the actor explore being physical. Or more simply, watching that person be. There was no doing.

Until there was. Asaf would walk in and make that person a surgeon, or a dentist, or a babysitter, or something else with a prescribed list of activities we all have in out heads because we are citizens of the modern world. And as soon as the actor started performing the surgery, or (in my case) drilling teeth, the scene got BORING. Fast. You could feel the life of it draining away.

Of course, as we each began to figure that out, you could feel the fun, the joy come back into each scene. Every time. It was like magic.

And I started thinking about how hard it is to keep being, even when the doing comes in. In yoga. In life. But when you find it, that feels like magic, too.

As soon as hatha yoga becomes something you do, it really sucks. At least in my experience. It becomes like running was for me years ago. I never really liked it, but I loved having run. It was something I did, a means to an end. I wanted a workout, an endorphin high... so I ran. Simple as that. But then the act of running was never meditative. I was so focused on the doing that I wasn't being. When you're being, the line between runner and running starts to dissolve. You can't have one without the other. And time stops for you.

In hatha yoga, if you "do" Tadasana, or Mountain Pose, you get bored. "Um. I'm standing. What's the big deal?"

If you "do" Warrior 3, you get pissed. I see the daggers coming out of the eyes of those people in class: "How long are you going to keep me here?!"

If you "do" Bakasana (Crow Pose) or whichever hand balance challenges you, you fall out as soon as you get in.

The trick to all of these is the same: You have to be the pose. I realize that sounds like a knock-off Bruce Lee line, but in my experience, it's true.

So how do you do that? How do you be? You breathe. You stay focused on what's happening in this micro-instant. On this breath. If you're holding your breath, it's a dead-on sign that you're doing, not being. Because the pose will change with every breath. And the more you pay attention, the BIGGER those changes become. They become earth-shakingly obvious. And fascinating. And so enjoyable to experience.

Interesting that we're called human beings, yet the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning is my to-do list. It's a strange ride, this effort to rediscover our birthright: being. The doing is so damn seductive.

Ladies are funny. Men are flexible.

LAFF -- the Ladies Are Funny Festival -- started on Wednesday night. I was there for the first night of lady-dominated shows. Three improv troupes -- Firth & Arjet, Sarah 7 and Girl Embassy World Team -- played, and all three were really good.

Really. Good.

Improv is mostly dominated by men, historically. Think about how many famous women have emerged from SNL. Now think about how many men. There are simply more men in comedy, generally speaking. So it makes sense that more of them would become household names. And you could argue that in the past there's been this a bias that women aren't funny. That maybe that still exists today. Or maybe just that women aren't asfunny as men.

I haven't actually asked them, but I would bet the ladies of Girls Girls Girls had it in their minds when they started this fest a few years back that A) this bias does exist, and B) their intention is to change that. Or at the very least to celebrate women in comedy.

Then the whole gender bias thing made me think about the ratio of women to men in yoga classes. It's no secret that there are generally more women who practice yoga. And there's a general conception that many women are naturally more flexible than men, especially in areas like the hips. (My boyfriend has an impressively deep pigeon pose, and just yesterday he was telling me that once in a yoga class a [female] teacher came up to him while he was in the pose and whispered, "That's amazing. I've never seen a guy do that before.")

Is being in touch with your body a primarily feminine attribute? And honing your cleverness a masculine skill? Why do these generalizations exist in the first place? Where are they rooted?

In about 45 minutes I'm taking a physical improv workshop with my friend Asaf Ronen -- a dude. Should be interesting with all this masculine/feminine/body/comedy hubbub freshly percolating in my mind.

Good morning, morning.

My favorite time to practice yoga is the early morning. But lately I've not made it a priority. It's easier to commit to when there are other people involved, which is why I'm so glad Chrispy is teaching a 6:30am vinyasa class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, starting this week.

I didn't get to sleep till about midnight. It sucked to wake up before 6, even though that's my favorite time of day.
Chrispy's sequence was very challenging for my lingering hamstring injury, and it sucked to feel like a lame-o.
Why do my obliques feel so weak? That sucked too.

Sometimes you have to go through the sucky to get to the sweet. Because right now I feel great.

Here I am.

It's funny how much I'm thinking about what to write here. My reason for starting a blog is to somehow marry my two Big Passions: improv and yoga. To me, both are about the present moment -- that elusive thing that we are always in, yet somehow habitually missing.

At least I do. How often am I really focused on what I am actually doing or feeling in this moment?

In improv, you have to remain present in order to tell good stories, in order to be good (whatever that means -- but we do know it when we see it). In yoga, you have to remain present to make crazy shapes with your body and still make nice with the gravitational field.

In both cases, thinking doesn't really serve you. Or rather, overthinking doesn't. The difference? Consider whether the mind is your tool or your overlord.

At least that's my experience. Which is why it's so ironic that I stared at this screen for as long as I did before finally writing my first-ever blog post. I don't want to write something that isn't good, that isn't perfect. But what is perfect, if not perfectly present?

That isn't to say I won't proofread. But maybe it's also to say that I won't censor. That's my intention: to be present, not perfect, as I relate my musings about improv and yoga.