One of my teachers describes the ultimate expression of a pose to his mostly beginning students with the phrase: in a perfect yoga world. For instance he might say: in a perfect yoga world, your head would meet your foot.

On good days in a perfect yoga world helps me see how even with my head meeting my foot there is always a deeper place to travel to in a pose. But on bad days I can’t help but think: in a perfect yoga world I wouldn’t even be in this class.

I was lying in final twist, pulling my hip away from my ribs like a good little yogi, when the teacher, who didn’t know my practice that well, came over and gave me an adjustment.

My back cracked. His eyes lit up; I could tell he was very pleased with himself. My back cracked ten more times. His eyes shifted to panic. Being a people pleaser, I tried to quietly reassure him. But I was, in fact, on the verge of panicking about it myself.

I’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to remember when my right hip joint had started cracking so prolifically. But I could only conjure memories of lying on my mat, twisting deeper and deeper, feeling like it needed to crack but couldn’t.

That night, standing in the shower, I swayed—shifting my ribs ever so slightly in the particular way that causes my back to crack over and over again. I counted up to 100 cracks. (I know. Counting is another bad habit that we control enthusiasts fall into when chaos is looming.) But I couldn’t stop. I was trying, as I had been every night for some time, to crack it until it was all cracked out. One more crack. Just one more.

Here's an amazing free download courtesy of the uniquely talented sound healer Tom Kenyon. It's a little over 5 minutes long and the idea is that you listen to it with headphones on and imagine that the sound is coming OUT of your pineal gland - aka 3rd eye.

I have started working with it because at this point anything we can do to open up our third eyes is a must! I can tell you it is very beautiful, and of a type of beauty you may not have experienced before. Mysterious, open, deep, magnetic are some words that come to mind.

http://tomkenyon.com/sound-gifts

The pineal gland is embedded in your brain but it’s not of your brain.
It’s literally the mind body connection.

"My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" is my column about living my - your - our yoga off the mat, and deepening our practices on the mat. It's published in LA Yoga Magazine and syndicated to Yoga Chicago Magazine and yogamates.com. The collected columns are also available online right here on the website.

But I know a lot of you don't have access to the magazines and/or don't like to read a lot of text online, but do dig listening to podcasts - plus I love recording audio - so now I'm making "My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" available in the groovalicious podcast format as well.

That means now you can enjoy "My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" in your car! Or on your mat:) Now enjoy Episode #4: "Water Whirled". And here are links to some of the things I refer to:

The Hydro-Mag Water Magnetizer
The Water Egg
Dr. Emoto

Listen and subscribe in iTunes (and don't forget to rate and review it - thanks!)

Podcast: 

moci.WaterWhirled.12.06.m4a

"My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" is my column about living my - your - our yoga off the mat, and deepening our practices on the mat. It's published in LA Yoga Magazine, Yoga Chicago Magazine and yogamates.com. The collected columns are also available online right here on the website.

But I know a lot of you don't have access to the magazines and/or don't like to read a lot of text online, but do dig listening to podcasts - plus I love recording audio - so now I'm making "My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" available in the groovalicious podcast format as well.

That means now you can enjoy "My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" in your car! Or on your mat:) Now enjoy Episode #3: "Arm and Arm"

Listen and subscribe in iTunes (and don't forget to rate and review it - thanks!)

Podcast: 

MOCI.ArmAndArm.9.25.m4a

They say follow your bliss but I say follow your pain. Because I’m starting to notice that when I follow my pain, then my bliss follows me.

This happened recently with my arm pain. The pain had become so bad that at the end of class, sitting in final cross-legged position, instead of joining my om with those of my neighboring mat-mates, I was busy scanning my arms and shoulders, trying to pinpoint exactly where it hurt most. Or should I say where it didn’t hurt.

By the time we namasted, my inner whining was so loud I could barely hear the post-class chat I love so well. I left my mat where it was and cornered my teacher, my tense voice the very definition of the squeaky wheel.

Sometimes I think of twittering as yoga. I am in union with a force greater than myself while I do it.

"My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" is my column about living my - your - our yoga off the mat, and deepening our practices on the mat. It's published in LA Yoga Magazine, Yoga Chicago Magazine and yogamates.com. The collected columns are also available online right here on the website.

But I know a lot of you don't have access to the magazines and/or don't like to read a lot of text online, but do dig listening to podcasts - plus I love recording audio - so now I'm making "My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" available in the groovalicious podcast format as well.

That means now you can enjoy "My Other Car is a Yoga Mat" in your car! Or on your mat:) Enjoy Episode #2: My Other Yoga Mat is the Cosmos...

Listen and subscribe in iTunes

Podcast: 

cosmos.m4a

I’m so excited! I’ve made a huge breakthrough in my practice. After only twelve years of determined effort I have moved on from the first sutra to the second! At this rate I will get through all 195 of Pantanjali’s Sutras by the time I’m 2340 years old. Thankfully I have my Hatha practice to keep me young.

The first sutra, atha yoganusanam, sounded so simple: “Now is the time we do Yoga.” Then I started thinking about ‘now’ ‘time’ ‘we’ ‘do’ and ‘Yoga.’ Yikes. And what about “the?”

A dozen years of down dogs later, it’s no small victory to show up on my mat with the feeling I’ve woven that first sutra into my life. Even if I ultimately had to win it by turning part of the sutra into my Myspace password.

Now I find myself thinking about the second sutra in the same way I think about lunch after I’ve fully digested breakfast.

I have a million ways to avoid a pose: thinking about something else while I’m in it, slipping out of class to pee, judging everyone else’s poses.

My favorite way to avoid a pose has always been to slink off my mat for a sip of water. But lately I’m having a hard time using water this way. I don’t feel like I’m a water user any more. Now I feel like I’m a water lover. And, of course, love is complicated.

It used to be so simple. I’d suck on my straw peacefully avoiding the dreaded eagle pose. But now it seems like the water activates my monkey mind the way water was supposed to activate those super cute little sea monkeys you could order from the back of comic books.

I tell my self I shouldn’t be drinking water in class. Water quenches the fire I’m working so hard to stoke. Drinking water mid-practice disturbs the pranic energy body. And my drink is another student’s distraction.

But then myself tells me that I’m thirsty!