DANI SCHER: The Most Difficult Aspect of the Practice... Fear vs.Ego: Can I Trust My Own Body? Am I safe?

Assignment for December weekend: What is the most difficult aspect of your personal practice? Identify it and write a 200 word dharma talk about it.  Then design a brief (8-10 pose) sequence that directly addresses that issue.

***SEQUENCE FOCUS: BRINGING CIRCULATION AND AWARENESS IN THE HANDS AND FEET THAT HAVE ZERO SENSATION

1. Sun Salutations

2. Open twists and laterals

3. Backbands

4, Nuetralizing Poses

5. Closed Twists

6. Forward Bends

7. Arm Balances

8. Inversions

9. Constructive Rest

10. Savasana

Where Is My Hand?  Where Are My Feet?  Am I Safe?:  A Practice of Literal Mind Over Matter; Life As a Yogi Pre and Post - Trauma

Trauma, either mental or physical in a lifetime is unavoidable.  There are stages in our lives where the levels of Oxytocin (a hormone that allows trauma to literally make “dents” in the brain when trauma occurs) is high and is low.  Unfortunately, these very predictable hormone cycles peak at the ages in human development that tend to be the exact times or stages in our lives where we are exposed to trauma (around the ages of 12-14, again at around 21, and 26).  We are left with these craters in our brains, hearts, and souls that we are usually not even aware of until something (either mental, physical, or both) breaks the camel’s back and we are pushed over the edge.  

When we think of trauma, it is very is to fall into the trap of either categorizing the effects as either mental or physical.  One or the other.  It is so easy to forgot the mental trauma and physical trauma a intertwined with each other in a frenetic dance.  In our healthcare system it literally sounds “crazy” to express to a physician that mental trauma can trigger enormous physical trauma.  The reverse is more of an obvious relationship but the separation of body and mind are more “logical.”  I call the relationship between mental and physical trauma with it’s connection to Oxytocin levels and exposure to trauma the “Trauma Cycle.”  For all of us, the cycle is different in both the nature and the severity of it in addition to the million other factors around us that affect our coping skills and ability to live in a functional way.  

My personal “Trauma Cycle” is a unique experience in that it left me with extreme physical effects and mental effects that have never been explored in the medical community.  It took many years for me to build the courage to face the causes and effects of my “Trauma Cycle” because looking inside myself and admitting that my own mental instability is the cause for enormous physical trauma to my brain and body.  Just writing these thoughts down brings me to tears, but this extreme emotional pain that bubbles up is central in my yoga practice because it cannot be avoided. Below is a very brief outline of my personal “Trauma Cycle.” 

• mental trauma starting around age 12-14…abandonment, never-ending picking up and moving over and over again due to a mentally ill father and his enormously successful career (a man who is the highest achiever yet runs and freaks out annually causing him to try to literally run away from his own self and taking the entire family along for this dangerous and uprooting ride).  I lived in over 20 houses by the time I was 21 years old.  The feeling of being uprooted is chronically clouding my entire mental process

• Developing extremely strong and polar coping mechanisms to counteract this mental pain by building up an almost impenetrable emotional wall that took over 20 years for me to break down and make a chisel in the stone
• Living with a brain that only sees and processes life with extreme polarity aka the head-cheerleader and the “popular girl,” with enormous insecurity despite not only the reality that should feel opposite of insecure and the personal knowledge that this illogical relationship with myself exists at the same time
• At the age of 17 I began practicing yoga.  I went to Target, purchased every Gaiam DVD with Rodney Yee.  I chose his DVDs because I was at this moment in my life looking for an entirely physical asana practice.  These DVDs had titles with the words including athlete, power, and strength with teacher with enormous muscles.  I only saw and absorbed the “surface” of asana practice and often (ok always) skipping savasana and not thinking about digging inside of my head at all.  Eventually I moved into a deeper practice guided by “Light On Yoga,” DVDs, and podcasts.  Yoga was always a self-practice in the sense that I always chose to learn in isolation instead of in a studio.  Of course self practice in reality is not about watching a podcast or reading a book but this self-taught practice allowed a very strong and deep real self-practice as I progressed over the years.

• mental trauma at age 21…I am from New Orleans.  On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.  I was alone.  My family and I were separated.  I evacuated (or attempted to) alone while my family stayed behind downtown in the super dome etc.  I had no idea if they were alive after the storm hit and many months passed before we were able to even find each other.  My parents NEVER returned to New Orleans.  The abounded me with 2 houses (really just rubble at that point) and an enormous case of PTSD right before or medical system began recognizing PTSD in the context outside of the military.  When I returned to new orleans after the storm I was side by side with the mayor literally pulling bodies from the water and covering the bodies that were left rotting on the streets with tarps waiting and waiting for somebody aka the federal government to come and help us clean up.  This cleanup is still a huge issue in New Orleans even 10 years later. The following is my abridged Katrina Story:

On December 31, 2005, I drove from Dallas to New Orleans. This was no run of the mill road trip. I was on my way back home. Hurricane Katrina damaged my house; the Federal Government destroyed my home. During the eight-hour road trip, anxiety and anger overcame me. To be honest, this rancid, emotional state had been pulsing through my veins for every second of every day since I found myself alone, stuck on this identical interstate in gridlock-traffic, evacuating from both the city that I live/loved/grew-up in and my family that stayed behind. 

Mind racing.... 

...What happened to my generation? What happened to this country? WHY ISN’T ANYBODY DOING ANYTHING? WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY CARE? 

WHERE ARE ALL OF THE PROTESTS? WHERE IS THE JUSTICE? 

As if in a manic state, these questions repeated in my brain and the aggravation swelled to my limbs until I shook with anger. My hands clung to the steering wheel. My knuckles turned a severe shade of white. I suddenly realized I was shouting out loud. STOP! I know what you are thinking... ‘this girl must be crazy..she is talking to herself...she definitely has lost IT.’ 

I am not really crazy, or at least completely. (In New Orleans, multiple-personality disorder is not a disorder...it is a high art.) There was actually another in the car. A ghost. A spirit. A legend. 

Her name is Marie Laveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. The spirit of Marie Laveau has followed me since I was a child. She was the most infamous voodoo practitioners in the beginning of the movement from slavery practices in New Orleans to the high-era of the “free people of color.” People visited Marie Laveau looking for spells to make someone fall in love, make a fortune, or even to kill a neighbor. This Voodoo Queen paraded through Congo Square, dancing to the Vodun rhythms and chanting spells. 

Marie Laveau became a household name. Stories of her life are still told today. What made this Voodoo Queen different from the many other Voodoo Queens is that she used her innate womanly power and charisma to influence an entire movement towards freedom and the empowerment of women in New Orleans. To me, she is an inspiration and a gift. She taught me the invaluable lesson of how to influence others to bring about change. Her medium was word of mouth. Her message was the strength of the media. 

If old Marie Laveau could bring about such extreme changes in society, spark the popularization and development of jazz as a genre, and still have the ability to keep children behaved hundreds of years after her death by the threat of her spirit doing evil, I could at least do SOMETHING to influence at least one person to bring a change in New Orleans. 

I knew that if I was going to be in New Orleans, I would have to raise money for New Orleans by selling something that had the personality of New Orleanians and that would not be just another rubber-wristband with a fleur de lis. I had to come up with something funny and even a little inappropriate because at the end of the day, New Orleanians will always make laughter 

through tears at inappropriate times because laughter is the best life raft. “IF THIS FEMA TRAILER IS’ A ROCKING...DON’T COME’ A KNOCKING!” 

In two weeks, I sold $13,000 worth of buttons with this phrase. I contacted a man named James Taylor who was in charge of actually purchasing materials to “repair” the levee systems. What did this buy? A pipe. Not so great. But was much more valuable and what needed to be repaired far more than the levees (they aren’t even repaired anyway now!) was the laughter of New Orleanians. For two years following the storm, I gave a button to anyone with tears in their eyes and of course...at no charge. These people were not hard to find. With each button came a crack of laughter. 

Marie Laveau’s legacy was the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. My legacy is “The Button Lady.” I have arrived! 

physical trauma: after Katrina, I lived in New Orleans and commuted back and forth to Dallas to have a roof over my head at times and to finish school.  I was alone.  Eventually I joined my parents in NYC where my family is from.  This was beyond painful.  Then this happened…

In 2009, I woke from sleep and suddenly had lost all feeling from my hands up to the elbow and from my toes up to my knees. I could not walk. I was diagnosed with a severe vitamin B12 deficiency. The deficiency caused massive nerve damage. I saw countless doctors and sought out help from hospitals all over the world for help with no success. Both mind and body lost functionality and no help from any physical therapist was of any use. So after waiting for months for help from doctors (with no ability to take care of myself at all) I opened up a book that I refer to as the bible, B.K.S. Iyengar’s “Light On Yoga,” and reread the opening to the book. Iyengar wrote of his childhood filled with major health problems that labeled him as severely disabled. Iyengar took ownership of his own life and hit the yoga mat in India and went from disabled to the most famous yogi still to this day. After reading, I hit the mat. I conquered the initial frustration of going from very experienced yogi with the ability to do guru level asanas to a person with no control or use of the body with enormous success. I kept hitting the mat every day and in 4 months I could walk normally and do many asanas. My B12 deficiency is part of my life every day. Every day I hit the mat (with complete loss of feeling in the limbs) and then walk with beautiful prana radiating from my body and no one would ever know.

NO EXCUSES

SEQUENCE:

• WARM-UP
• constructive rest pose
• place hands on tops of thighs 
• press one foot into the floor and stress the posts of leg pressing into floor and alternate with the breath
• supta tadasana - wrist flapping kria variation
• supta tadasana - grounding variation
• blocks strapped to bottom of feet 
• sandbags on upper thighs 
• hands overhead squeezing block
• supta padangustasana grounding variation
• with strap at edge of heel and yank as hard as you can on strap to ground the inner heel
• thread the needs
• inhale point foot
• exhale bend foot 
• cat/cow with heels at wall
• focus on pressing the heels into the wall
• observe the relationship of the pelvis and breath with relation to the pressing of the hands into the floor and effects of movement on the hands
• puppy dog / L shape pressing hands into wall
• Tadasana at the wall
• feel the grounding effect of the wall and lengthen up the wall
• SURYA NAMASKAR AND HEATINGplank to AMS at wall with breath (X5) 
• sandbags on hands
• heels pushing into wall
• sun salute variation (x5)
• focus on the grounding of the feet to root down and grow taller
• surya namaskar A (X5)
• surya namaskar B, var (X3)
• @ wall with virabhadrasana 3 with back heel at wall and AMS with heels at wall
• OPEN TWISTS AND LATERALS
• tree pose
• leaning tree
• side angle with bind
•  Backbands
• supported bridge
• legs up the wall var
• blocks strapped to tops of feet
• press heels into wall
• sandbags on upper thighs
• press down through the elbows with the hands facing each other
• notice the relationship of the feet at the wall with the extra feedback from wall and blocks with the breath 
• Closed Twists
• half lord of the fish
• focus in grounding of the heel and big toe
• focus on rooting down action to initiate twist
• bind
• Forward Bends
• uttanasana ciruculation var.
• in the forward fold, take the hands into fists and tap the toes and move up the ankles and shins tapping into the skin on the bottom half of the leg where there is zero sensation
• uttanasana var.
• press hands into outer shins and shins into hands to widen the inner groin
• sandbags on feet
• focus on grounding of the heel the same way the focus was when strap was being yanked on heel at beginning of class
• continue to return to this focus on the foot throughout the entire practice
• 
  
• Arm Balances
• Inversions
• handstand
• focus on the hands and their relationship with the breath and explore different positioning of hands
• ground down firmly with hands and focus on this grounding 
• extend up through the inner heel the same way the focus was when the strap was being yanked on heel at the beginning of sequence on the floor 
• forearm balance with sandbags on hands
• Constructive Rest
• sandbags on feet
• push hands into thighs and move pelvis with the breath
• Savasana 
• sandbags on thighs 
• sandbags on shoulders
• sandbags on hands
• sandbags on feet
• blanket under head and feet
• 2 blocks stacked so 1 block gently pushes the forehead skin down / or eye pillow pushing forehead skin down
• blanket covering entire body
• play with effects of eyes open or eyes closed

OR

• Savasana on Stomach