I am on a mission for Plaid Magazine to find the coolest, creative yoga classes in Toronto.
Here is number one: Suspension Yoga
I like context.
Knowing where a painter was born, if they were left-handed, if they were avid readers, city mice or country hermits and what they ate for breakfast all help to deepen my perception and enjoyment of a painting.
In an art gallery, I enjoy the artist bios and quotes and the collection introductions stenciled up and down 15 feet of wall almost as much as I do the colors and brushstrokes.
Take for example this one I found in the AGO on my latest visit:
“But, after all, the aim of art is to create space – space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.”
- Frank Stella
Madinat as-Salam I
I also like parallels.
If we take Stella’s quote and think about the canvass as our body, and yoga as painting, we find a common goal between the two practices: space. The aim of yoga is to create space, mentally and physically through breath, compassionate awareness and asana. Sometimes I think of this process as a cracking open of sorts, or as letting go and surrendering. But what if we thought about creating space in our yoga practice as a creative process? In the act of relinquishing everything that fills us up, litters the canvass of lives, that ceases to serve us anymore, that distracts our attention, we consciously free up space for light, for softness, for movement. In these spaces, we invite our authentic selves, the true subject of our painting, to appear and to flourish: to live.
If your body were a painting: what wold it look like now?
How cluttered is your painting; is their room to breathe?
What ‘decoration or illustration’ s can you remove?
How can you bring your ‘subject’ to life?
“There are no straight lines in life,” says my friend sitting across from me, resting his elbows on the checkered table-cloth staring out past his coffee mug through the restaurant window. “What do you mean? You’ve had a pretty linear trajectory of success!” I reply, rubbing in the fact that he has just left me in Toronto, for the greener pastures of New York City. “Plus, the lines of these squares,” I say pointing to the red and white table-cloth, “are pretty perfect”.
“That’s exactly it, ” he says, “these lines only look perfect from a distance; and my life looks like a well-executed plan. But from the inside, there are no straight lines. With a microscope you could easily see the imperfections of the lines on this table-cloth, and if you ever sat with me on one of the countless days, when I had no clue where I was going, and was filled with doubt and uncertainty, you would see that my life only looks like a straight line in hindsight: these are all optical and perceptive illusions.”
“Remember when I visited you in New York,” I say, “and we went to hear Henry Rollins talk about his new book of photography. I think he was saying the same thing. Looking back on his career now, everything fits together, his music, his message, his publishing company and now his photography; but amidst this process, he didn’t know what the fuck was going to happen, or where he would end up.”
“Exactly, Rollins was articulating this very same idea; from the outside, we like to look at successful people and imagine that they knew where they would end up, nay, planned where they would be, from the start. This is a perfect way for us to stay paralyzed by fear, to make ourselves feel bad about not knowing where we are going, but the truth is, no one does: there are no straight lines, and that’s perfectly okay.”
I looked down at the table-cloth and noticed how the red and white threads had bled together in the tight weave, almost creating a soft pink blur at where they met, not a crisp line separating the two squares. I looked up at my friend, and saw how I had built up this idea of his life, being so perfect, so planned and so expertly executed, and noticed how I have held this illusion against the map of my life, at times using it as inspiration, but also fueling my doubt and insecurity.
Then I saw the soft blur of both our lives, the red and the white, the successes and failures, the dreams and realities, the dropped threads and the inconsistent patterns woven through decades of wondering, and wandering. There are no straight lines in life, no clear-cut paths, no red and white, we exist in at the soft meeting point of will and surrender, moving though life leaving a luminescent pink blur as we follow our truth.
Not only do we, as yoga teachers, learn the little details of asana, pranayama, anatomy and meditation from our fellow teachers, but we also absorb new yoga teaching techniques. When we set aside our ‘teacher’ hats, and fully embrace our role as a student, we become better teachers.
This is a picture of me painting.
I am not a painter, and I had no idea this picture was being taken.
a few nights ago I was unexpectedly hurled into an intense moment of unadulterated creative expression that in many ways felt like doing yoga. Here’s what happened…
Art Battle Toronto was created by Simon Plashkes and Chris Pemberton, and is a live art competition where artists have 25 minutes to paint a complete piece in front of a live audience who then votes for their favorite. Each round includes veritable artists, and a guest audience member – which is where I came in. 5 minutes after I dropped my ticket stub in the hat and promptly forgetting about it, my name was drawn, and I was summoned to the easels.
Sweating under the bright lights, I found myself face to face with a blank canvas, armed with a heavy palate of thick vibrant acrylic paint, wondering, “what the hell am I going to paint!?”
No time to decide, the buzzer goes off, and the games begin! I set aside my train of thought, my nervous brain filled with doubt and judgment, because there is no time or need for stories about can and can’t, what and why: I pick up the palette knife, exhale, and let the paint fly.
Like sinking deep into a long pigeon pose, 25 minutes could have been 25 hours. As I dropped deeper into the experience of painting; the colors textures, sensations in my arms and shoulders, the magic of instantaneous, intuitive aesthetic judgments, I truly felt like I was practicing yoga, and very viscerally realized that in these two practices, so much of my inner-landscape appeared exactly the same.
The buzzer rings, the game is done, and I feel elated and energized: like the flooding sensation of free-flowing prana and unraveled emotions when you pull yourself from the inner life of a pose and feel it’s effect. My painting was done. I didn’t care how it looked, just like a yoga pose, it was all about how it felt, during, and after.
Later, my soon to be art patron approached me to discuss my spontaneous creation. instead of asking me about how I chose to paint what I did, he asked, (just like a teacher) “How did you feel?”
“Nervous, charged, liberated, fearless, inadequate…” I replied. “Yes, he said, “I can see that.”
This whole experience was a revelation of yogic and artistic ties, and deepened my understanding and curiosity of the links between these two practices.
This experience was an affirmation of the power of the uncensored pose. Like an unplanned painting, unmediated by thought or judgment, every yoga pose is free to become a work of art.
I blessedly fell into the arms of the Starving Artist Yoga Network just one year ago when I moved to Toronto, and am happy to announced that I am now officially part of the team, along with painter and newly certified acupuncturist Julie Gladstone, and the lovely inked Doula, Leah Von Zuben.
We have re-committed and clarified our vision to promote and provide Creative, alternative, affordable, non-corporate yoga classes in downtown Toronto.
We are also amping up to release a winter workshop series to knock your woolen socks off! Get ready for a synthesis of yoga and creative arts unlike anything offered anywhere in Toronto.
Starving Artist Yoga Network is happily housed at Spirit Wind Internal Arts Center in Kensington Market at the corner of Augusta & Oxford St. on the 2nd Floor above the Vegetarian Restaurant Urban Herbivore.
While we fishing cooking up some delectable workshop fusions of yoga, art, music and other imaginative artistic ingredients, join us every Friday for a relaxing end of the week class for all levels:
Spirit Wind Centre. 64 Oxford St. 2nd Floor 6:00-7:30pm
PWYC FRIDAYS DROP IN 6:00-7:30pm
When we don’t know what do to, when we are stuck in our minds, we need to drop down into our hearts to find the answers. Whether it’s “What should I do with my life?” or “What word, note, or color should I add to my newest piece?”, sometimes the best advice comes from inside our chests not our skulls. This may be tough to hear, and harder to follow, but trust is our greatest strength.
At the end of the outdoor yoga season, I was in a situation of having to find a yoga studio, rent space, market and promote and network my butt off to continue with a my drop -in classes. I had done it successfully before, but now, that heart-voice began to get louder. “look at all the writing you are doing” it said, “this is exactly what you want, why don’t you stop teaching yoga for the fall, and see what happens when you focus on your words”.
I listened; and I miss my yoga students terribly. But I am more busy with writing than ever, and I have found peace in a sense of cohesion, of focus and satisfying singularity (not to mention single-dom!), which has been feeding me, figuratively and now literally, since.
I guess that’s what fall is about, and what we can work with in our yoga practice for this time of year: LETTING GO OF THE OLD, SO YOU CAN LET GO INTO THE NEW.
Falling leaves nourish the soil, and help give life to new growth.
What are you letting go of, and letting go into, this fall?
