Travel Kit for Creatives on Retreat

Every September, I gift myself a creative getaway. I get far away from the home I love, i.e. everything potentially distracting to my creative work, including friends and family. This is a time for solo dreaming, journaling, deep thinking and writing, writing, writing.

Most often, my DIY solo retreat is a cheap hotel in Las Vegas. Despite the carousing all around, I post up alone in the Flamingo hotel where there’s air conditioning, wifi, power outlets, desk space and nothing on my calendar but “create my next Big Thing.” Glancing out the window, I see sunny views of tourists marinating in a sprawling pool with flamingo floaties – and I have zero temptation to join them. I stay at the desk in my little room with hot coffee and laptop, my head down and fingers tapping away.

For this lucky September, I get to stay at a dear friend’s beautiful and remote place in Maine, right on the coast with a gorgeous view of the sea.

Here’s what’s in my travel kit for getaways like this one – my fuel for the creative fire, supplies for my own personal artist’s retreat.

Portable tech:

I might launch a podcast, create a video series, start a location-independent coaching program, more. Whatever the brainstorm, I’m ready with my gear.

• Video recording device with tripod

  • Favorite: my iPhone and the ProCam app, plus my trusty GorillaPod stand

• Mini microphone for quality audio recording

• Favorite: MiC, available at the Apple Store

• Laptop

  • Favorite: my trusty pink MacBook

• External hard drive 

  • Because ain’t nobody got time for “storage full” notifications.

Pampering ritual items:

The best inspirations always come in the bath, don’t they? Douglas Adams famously measures his ideas in baths. I get premium insight from premium pampering, so I make sure my product lineup is on point.

• Scrubs, masks, essential oils

  • Favorite: anything from Lush, especially the mask and scrub combo Cup O’ Coffee and anything that smells like Rose Jam or Flying Fox

• Candles and crystals

  • Favorite: intention candles by Aloha Elixir, starting with the eucalyptus mint blend Road Opener

Sensory nourishment:

My mind runs on dope beats and hot yummy beverages. To keep me fueled and focused, I prepare a few hours of thoroughly tested deep-think music and bring along my tea and coffee travel wardrobe.

Some type of hot water contraption is in every hotel room and domicile, whether it’s an electric kettle, a tiny coffee pot or an ostentatious Keurig set-up. You can make it work. Just don’t expect your favorite coffee/tea to be there waiting.

• Good herbal tea

  • Favorite: dried māmaki leaves (indigenous Hawaiian nettle)

• Super-powered coffee

  • Favorite: lion’s mane mushroom coffee by Four Sigmatic

• Insulated vessel, mini-strainer

  • Favorite: HydroFlask food flask, maintains both hot and cold like a temperature-control dream, easy to clean, super secure lid, and it’s damn cute

  • Favorite: manatee tea strainer, which looks like a tiny sea cow is hot tubbin’ on the edge of your drinking vessel 

• Reliable playlists

• Favorite: my personal Spotify account (follow me @ponyponytail), currently jamming to a genre-bending curated playlist called Pollen

• Good headphones, plus an aux cable in case my lodging has good speakers that aren’t Bluetooth-able

  • Favorite: Bose noise-cancelling over-ear headphones (QC35 II)

  • Dear reader friend… LMK if you have a super recommendation for a quality, durable aux cable. Currently, I’m using an emergency-purchase one from Walgreens.

Clothing considerations:

I firmly believe in getting dressed up for work, but I do not compromise on comfort. Do you think more provocative thoughts when you’ve got some sexy shit on? I do. And for me, creativity and sex – or feeling sexy and therefore generative – are inextricably linked.  

• Very cute, very comfy clothes

  • Favorite: Lily Lotus errrrythang, designed in Hawaii and made in the USA, especially the kia bra, the gypsy pant and the lily wrap, buttery-soft separates that make you feel like a professional loungewear model

• Cashmere scarf and warm socks

  • These may or may not make it out of my room. If it’s 105℉ outside, likelihood is low I’ll be seen in public with these items, but likelihood is high that I’ll need these warm snuggle buddies in the cryogenic chamber that is a typical hotel room. Like, the hotter it is outside, the colder hotels are inside.

  • Favorite: SmartWool over-the-knee socks

  • Favorite: I have a scarf that’s 50% cashmere, 50% silk, all black and very large – it’s a combo scarf and lap blanket.

Procrastination station:

When I’m good and bored, my mind starts releasing thought bubbles of subconscious magic. Many big ideas have come from my aimless musings while driving in traffic or waiting somewhere. But boredom is, well, boring. I’ll avoid it, even though I know it’s good for me.

Instagram, entrepreneur podcasts and YouTube tutorials are three of the sneaky ways I’ll trick myself into feeling productive and engaged, even though I’m really just avoiding boredom and the creative work that follows.

To outsmart my foxy procrastinator ways, I pack along a craft project that occupies my eyes and hands, and I disallow listening to podcasts and sometimes even music. The repetitive action of braiding, wrapping, etc. is enough to keep my monkey mind busy while my deeper creative consciousness gets her quiet time.

• Mindless crafty project, just one

  • Favorite: jewelry making, like braiding seed beads onto silk cord or wire working

  • Note: This mindless crafting is entirely different from designing jewelry, which is an artistic endeavor and would use up much of my deep-think bandwidth. No bueno.

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Here’s the scene right now. I’m sitting in a comfy armchair, steaming cup of Four Sigmatic mushroom coffee at my left hand. I’ve got my Bose headphones on, and I’m listening to my “KWEEN DIME” playlist on Spotify. (It’s good. You should follow it.)

The leaves on the trees outside are just starting to turn orange and red. It’s sunny but cool, and I’m wearing the exact Lily Lotus outfit described above, plus SmartWool socks and my scarf.

Earlier this morning, I got so ridiculously bored that I took a head of cauliflower and riced it using only a santoku, no food processor. My brain went wandering… and here we are.

This blog series, this article right here, stands as evidence of my creative output from this retreat. And friend, there’s more, there’s so much more.

As always, thank you for reading and joining me on my journey. Now, I would love to hear from you: what tools and supplies do you use to fuel your creative fire, and what are the strategies that make them work for you? Drop me an email or, better yet, leave a comment below so we can keep the conversation going.

I raise my coffee mug to you. Cheers, love.

What's in my bag?

I’m a hardworking lady, and I need all my stuff to work just as long and hard as I do. I’ve compiled here a list of the tried-and-true products I carry around with me every day, plus notes on how I make it all work together.

Some days, I leave my house at 6:00am and I’m not home until 10:00pm or later. My appointments for the day can range from meeting with clients to teaching yoga classes to attending (or starring in!) opening night for the Hawaii Shakespeare Festival. With that range of events, I’ve got a wide variety of criteria for the stuff that supports my work. 

I often commute on public transportation and on foot, so I carry a backpack instead of a purse or gym bag. My work takes me from my home in Hawaii to India, Australia, Japan and Europe, which means my gear needs to function in all weather and emergency purchases can be extra challenging. 

I need both essentials and contingency supplies to make it through the day; however, anything that I can leave at home, I WILL leave at home. Carrying unnecessary dead weight for sweaty miles and long hours is not my idea of an efficient lifestyle habit. If it doesn’t fit in my backpack, it’s not coming with me.

Through years of trial, error and regretful purchases, I’ve crafted this list of 10 favorite things that have stood the tests of schedule, weather, comfort and physical durability. Oh, and cuteness. Because obviously.

1. My favorite backpack is the RooTote, small size, available in Tokyo and online. My friend and mentor Anandra George was rocking one everywhere in India, so when we were last in Japan together, I knew I needed my own. I stash my personal items in the sneaky side compartment.
2. My laptop is the rose gold MacBook. It’s small, fast, a little bit glam and a workhorse – just like me. Also, it weighs two pounds and fits easily in my RooTote backpack – not like me.
3. Aloha splash-proof zipper pouches are my quintessential wet-dry separators. I have the mini, small and medium sizes and I don’t leave home without them. These coated Tyvek bags keep my MacBook super safe from everything, including soaked gym clothes and, once, an adopted SCOBY in a jar. And check out this beautiful example of “bag inception”: on a hike, I used a mini one to hold my cell phone and car fob inside a medium one, so my wet swimming stuff stayed away from the electronics and the electronics had a bit of padding and everything was in one little easy-to-carry package. Boom, life hack.
4. Cream deodorant by Natural Aloha is a combo of coconut oil, arrowroot powder and magic. I stay un-stinky for hours and hours, and my skin loves it. I apply some in the morning and I carry an almost-empty tin of it in my RooTote for reapplication when my schedule goes 10+ hours.
5. I carry Cottonelle wipes for freshening up on the go. I use these on all my body parts, no shame in my game. I figure, if they’re sensitive enough for “down there,” then I can totally use them on my face, hands, feet and everywhere in between. You’re welcome.
6. Active lifestyle apparel by local Hawaii companies Lily Lotus and Fighting Eel give me life. When I’m wearing this stuff, I feel comfortable, cool, supercute and socially conscious. I regularly get complements on how “yoga professional” I look, and I think, “Yeah, but it feels like I’m wearing pajamas,” and then I mentally high-five myself. Five favorite pieces: Lily Lotus kimono, Lily Lotus long legging, Lily Lotus kia bra, Fighting Eel shorts om, Fighting Eel tank swoon. BONUS: All my favorite pieces can be machine-washed and dried, easy squeezy. 
7. Chelsea Abril is my LipSense dealer. (She’s also one of my favorite photographers in the whole world.) This stuff doesn’t rub off or transfer onto anything, which means I can have flawless, pretty color on my lips that looks fresh hours and hours after I applied it. Five favorite colors: Bombshell, Berry, Fly Girl, Nude (for layering), Purple Reign.
8. Uni Style Fit multi pens and Zebra MildLiner highlighters are my favorite writing tools of all time. If you’ve ever seen me working, you know I take notes almost constantly, diagramming and color-coding as I go. The Style Fit inks come in a rainbow of colors (which I’ve totally collected), they don’t run or fade, and the tips come in widths from 0.5mm to 0.28mm. I’ve had the same pen bodies for over five years, and I get my refills at Fisher Hawaii or on Amazon. I get the 5-color body and the 0.28mm refills. My favorite journal (I’m a bullet journaler) is the Leuchtturm1917 with dot-grid pages.
9. I hydrate way more with my Zojirushi flip-top bottle than I would without it. I’ve had the same small black one for several years and its cost per use is down to pennies. Double-walled construction means cold stuff stays cold and hot stuff stays hot, be careful! The best feature is the locking flip-top button, which lets me keep the bottle secure even when I’m playing the harmonium and can only sneak out one hand.
10. My portable battery pack is the best emergency purchase I’ve ever made. The one I have is a brand called “myCharge” from a random airport kiosk in Europe. Nowadays, I always carry the battery pack, a lightning cable and a mini-USB cable – neatly tucked into a mini Aloha Collection pouch in the side compartment of my RooTote. This little pack has saved the day too many times to count, and I’ve even helped out friends that needed a power-up!

These ten products have stood the test of Stephanie life, which is pretty rigorous if I do say so myself. If you try any of these items, I would love to know how they work for you.

Do you have your own daily must-haves? Tips to share? Favorite products? Let me know in the comments below.

Love and lifestyle optimization, babes!

Yogāsana for Sound-Based Practices

This article is a companion to the practices we explore in yogāsana class in the Heart of Sound yoga teacher training. My development of this work is inspired by my experiences with Leslie Kaminoff, Judith Hanson Lasater and Denise Kaufman.

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This type of practice has very different goals than an āsana class that focuses on more gross-level forms and actions. While your students probably won’t get very sweaty, their subtle awareness skills will get a great workout.

Now that you’ve experienced this very special approach in your own body, we’ll review key components and some practical examples here. I’ve also provided a few philosophical ideas to support your teaching and help deepen your experience and your students’ understanding.

Guiding questions, with philosophical connections in italics:

• How do I feel most stable? Most activated? Most connected? Most free?
  • cultivating spaciousness, awareness and discernment
• In what ways am I pushing myself? In what ways am I holding myself back?
  • Ayurveda of the mind: discovering hidden tāmas, soothing rājasic tendencies
• If this pose were easy, what would that be like? (And do it!) 
  • rewriting your thoughts, līlā, sukha
• This practice is a prayer for peace. Let that idea seep into every movement.
  • pūrṇa concept, āsana as fullness instead of grasping for external successes
• Instead of transcending the body and its limitations, we celebrate the body as an instrument of grace, made perfect in its limitations — just as the holes and stops in a flute are what creates its music.
  • Tantric connection, non-dual principle, the unity of fullness and yearning
• In addition to this celebration, we practice yogāsana keep our body instruments tuned, graceful and clean, ready to be used by Grace. 
  • precision and specificity as devotion, like learning the mouth positions in Sanskrit pronunciation
• We savor space, we savor stillness, we savor silence. 
  • listening inward first, like nāda yoga or vocal toning for the gross body, or a physical practice of NVC self-empathy
• Resist the urge to “fix” your posture to fit an external image of “good form” or “proper alignment.” Stay with the feeling. 
  • progression of satya

Key points:

• Encourage feeling the shape from the inside rather than adhering to a look or style. Eschew canned alignment points such as “square the hips,” or “front knee at 90 degrees” and “second toe points forward” for example.
• Prioritize students’ awareness of their breath and, further, their postural support muscles. Coach scanning for necessary engagement and unnecessary tension.
• Favor layman’s terms and descriptive language. Resist the urge to overstate anatomical details. Rather than “lift through the quadriceps and draw the femur head into its socket,” I might suggest, “Move your leg muscles around until you can feel your front-of-thigh muscles engage. Keeping that, pull your hip back toward the back of your mat.”
• Avoid using abstract ideas of body parts and “should-ing” through important alignment details. In my view, “the sacrum” doesn’t exist, and it certainly doesn’t have any prescribed way it “should” be. However, my particular sacrum likes to tilt slightly backward in seated postures (which has been quite distressing to a handful of my teachers). Your sacrum may very well be similar or dissimilar to mine. There is no canonical alignment, no idyllic sacrum in the sky to which we must aspire and try to imitate.
• Remind students that they are free to adjust themselves at any time, that there is no obligation to “power through” any discomfort, that they can decide to come out of a pose when needed, or to opt out entirely. Conversely, you might also remind students to explore their edges and attempt challenging things, but to do so with compassion and curiosity.
• The point is not to get all students to align as perfectly as possible; rather, to invite all students to listen deeply to their own bodies as lovingly as possible.

Examples of specific poses:

• In “Warrior 1,” students might take a shorter stance.
• In “Triangle,” students might turn the front foot outward slightly and let the front knee bend slightly.
• In “Triangle” and “Revolved Triangle,” the top arm need never be vertical. Start with top hand on hip, cue students to maintain space in the upper chest, and only then direct them to extend their top arms only as far as they will go without compromising their breath. 
• In “Mountain Pose,” have students close their eyes while bending and unbending their knees. Coach them to try stepping their feet wider apart, closer together, one forward, one back, turned in, turned out, all the while asking the question, “How do I feel most stable here?” Remind them to keep their feet just that way as they open their eyes and look, resisting the urge to “fix” themselves.

Examples of things to explore:

• Specifically describe a shape without giving it a name. Then, once students feel your interpretation of the pose and have had an opportunity to find what works for them, you might say, “We’ll call this our Triangle Pose.”
• You might cue “step one foot forward” instead of “step into Warrior 1,” to help students loosen their expectations of what a named pose “should” be.
• Reverse the pattern of in-breath and out-breath. For example, if you habitually teach inhaling to Cow Pose and exhaling to Cat Pose, switch it up. Whether you love this variation or hate it, you’ll gain useful information about your body. Further, you’ll give your students powerful permission to experiment and make their practice their own.
• Instead of cueing students to breathe more deeply or more fully, invite students to breathe as subtly and shallowly as possible without holding the breath.
• In balancing poses, draw students’ attention to the tiny movements that occur within what looks like stillness. For example, holding an arm balance or a one-legged standing pose requires a lot of dynamic adjustment.
• If you habitually teach Seated Forward Fold with a flat back, try inviting students to let their spines round forward. Continue coaching deep inquiry: “Does this feel more comfortable, or not?” “Does this feel more open, or not?” “Are you able to breathe more easily, or not?”
• Play with going “too far” — take Crescent lunge really deep, or in Half Moon float your bottom hand, or in any twisting pose take a bind with a strap as needed. Consider these guiding questions: “How are you changing the shape of your breath to accommodate this position?” and “Where can you expand more?” For safety reasons, this exploration is more appropriate in smaller groups. 
• Some of my students love working their bandhas and for them, I suggest releasing the bandhas as much as possible. I reassure them that their pelvic floors won’t fall out if they stop lifting and they can return to the bandhas anytime they want. These students are often surprised to find they have difficulty relaxing in this way, and I humbly suggest that anything that presents a challenge is a good opportunity for renewed tapasya.
• In simple static poses like Sukhāsana or Śavāsana, draw students’ attention to the subtle Cat/Cow movements of their spines and the rise and fall of their ribs with in-breath and out-breath. These small movements happen consistently in all bodies but differently in each individual body, and the key point is awareness, not “correctness.” (In other words, your spine and ribs and organs move with each breath and mine move too, but how your parts move is different from how my parts move.)

Integration with other Heart of Sound topics:

• For ideas on how yogāsana works to change karma, see the “Yogāsana and Karma” article.
• For more ideas and connections in using breath practices, see the Prāṇāyāma articles.
• For more on the topic of physical body awareness, see the article “Mantra and the Nervous System,” as well as the article “Voice and the Enlivened Spine.”

Note from Stephanie: 

I put quotation marks around the pose names in this article when I mean to indicate my loose interpretation. In class, I explain my re-definition of each pose to meet my needs for clarity, safety and inclusion. 

For example, I might introduce a pose like this: “Stand at the back of your mat. Step one foot forward, whichever one feels like it wants to go there. Bend and unbend your front knee, and adjust your foot placement — turn them in or out, step them together or apart — until you can point your bent knee straight forward without discomfort. Let your back foot root down firmly, especially through your heel and pinky toe edge. Point your eyes forward, your heart, your hips. Now, lift your arms skyward with soft shoulders. As an option, you might rest hands on hips. We’ll call this our ‘Warrior 1.’” 

I find this approach to yogāsana very refreshing and my students often find the practice revelatory and empowering. On an esoteric note, I connect this free interpretation of āsana to the journey “from form to formlessness”!

Let It Go, or...

The Yoga Lesson in Disney's Frozen

If you know the song, you’re singing it in your head right now. 

There’s a lesson for yoga practice in there. Yeah. I didn’t know either. The lesson is this: If you look perfect in practice, yer doin it wrong. 

I was actually sick of “the Frozen song” until a new favorite yoga teacher used it to teach this badass lesson.

Let that image shit go.

I was traveling through San Francisco one autumn, desperately seeking yoga. I was sore and lethargic from sitting on airplanes and eating irregularly and not moving my body.

The only class I could fit in was an advanced level hot vinyasa flow. Right away, I was like “ugh, not my style.” I mean, I love practicing challenging poses at home, but this would be in public. In a heated room. With a teacher I didn’t know. At a strange studio. In a city far from home.

I felt really, really self-conscious.

I worried that I’d fall on my face and embarrass myself, so I kinda wanted to hide. I worried that the teacher wouldn’t immediately recognize that I’m a teacher, so I kinda wanted to stand out.

But I was desperate for a class.

“I can handle this,” I told myself. “I’m good at yoga!”

Ego can be a bitch. 

I walked up ten minutes before class, and there was a line of people waiting to check in. When I got into the huge room, the only spots left were near the very back or way up front. I took a spot in front, hoping that this clearly very popular teacher was one of those ignore-the-front-row types.

He bounced in radiating “lessss goooo!” energy. He bopped over to the sound system plugin. There was no pretense, no yoga voice, nothing but genuine enthusiasm. What happened next endeared Buddy Macuha to me forever.

The music started, “Snow glows white on the mountain tonight, not a footprint to be seen…”

I thought, “No. This is a joke. He’s going to turn this crap off any second now.”

He didn’t. 

Buddy said, “I love this song. It’s teaching me. Listen!” And he mimed belting the chorus into a microphone as Idina Menzel’s voice filled the room, “Let it go. Let it go. Can’t hold it back anymore.”

Buddy presented the theme of the practice this way. He encouraged us to let go, to push a little past where we felt comfortable and just practice. To try something that’s “too hard.”

“We’re an advanced class here,” Buddy explained, “You know how to keep yourself physically safe. Just don’t play it safe.”

If we felt like transitioning through a handstand, great. If we fell on our faces, great.

“Is there a pose you’re afraid of? Let’s do it! Time to let go of that fear,” he said.

The word fear landed like a brick in my stomach —

I was afraid. My throat got heavy as my eyes started to burn with tears. My mind tightened. Maybe I shouldn’t be here. Maybe I have no business coming to an advanced class. Maybe I’m not good at yoga. Maybe I’m not a good yoga teacher. Maybe I’m a fraud. 

I pictured myself standing, rolling up my mat and suffering the awkwardness of leaving class before it even started. “Better than staying and crying, for God’s sake,” I thought. I was already way out of my comfort zone, and Buddy (and the Frozen song) were telling me to go further.

I took a deep breath, ready to get up… and that’s when Buddy stood right next to me.

Shit.

In a panic, I did the only other thing I could think of: I stayed. At least until he walked away.

“Take a deep breath,” he said, still right beside me. “And let.. it.. go.”

And I did. 

Watery-eyed, I sang the opening AUṀ with abandon, letting my ragged voice ring out. Buddy smiled at me. I shakily smiled back. 

We were up and moving within seconds, no time to hesitate. Buddy called out the poses in majorette cadence, snapping his fingers in a Z formation.

“Down Dog!” Snap snap.

“Chaturanga!” Snap snap.

“Up Dog!” Snap snap.

I smiled bigger in the privacy of Down Dog. “This guy is out there!” I thought. “There’s no way I could be the weirdest person in the room even if I tried.”

My mind-shackles loosened. I tried poses that made me nervous. I fell over and wanted to melt into the floor with embarrassment. I got up. I fell over again. I laughed. I left my self-consciousness in a sweaty puddle under my feet. I nailed some poses I didn’t think possible, trembling with effort and triumph. And I had an amazing, no-holds-barred, utterly joyous practice. 

These lyrics from the second verse still ring in my memory:

It’s funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can’t get to me at all

What are you afraid of? 

Falling over?

Embarrassing yourself?

Not knowing everything there is to know about yoga?

Getting called a fraud?

Being laughed at?

In the words of Disney’s Frozen and the wonderful teacher Buddy Macuha: “Let it go.”

Push yourself. Find your edge by actually visiting it. Peek over the edge, even. Scary things are not so scary when you look at them in the light of your own strength.

Dear Buddy, thanks again.

Leslie Kaminoff Made Me Cry (and it was awesome)

I'll post again later with more details about Leslie Kaminoff's four-day immersion, more context, more specifics on what I learned about breathing mechanics. For now, this post is about how a sprinkle of new experience changed my everything. I'm writing to those that shared this journey with me.

To you Silk Bridge attendees, thank you for your care, your powerful words, your outpouring of love that held me together on that day. I hope this post starts to answer all the beautiful questions you've been asking me.

Please leave me a comment here? I'd love to know more about what you felt, what you saw, what you learned. Your words here will bolster my healing and help tremendously as I continue to explore. As we learned in our Day 3 partner work, there's nothing like another perspective.

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I took a full breath for the first time in 11 years, and it felt totally natural and completely unfamiliar. 

When I got home that evening, I was visibly exhausted and confused and overwhelmed. My partner Tony took one look at me and said, "Let's jump in the ocean." I put on my bikini. We walked across the sand and into the water. This is pretty much what I told him.

I started with the pee story, the infinity-pee that happened right after working with Leslie.

It felt like the longest pee of my life. Seriously, I just kept peeing and peeing until I felt hollow. This is not a metaphor. I wobble-walked to the bathroom, clung to the wall as I slowly slid down to the seat and peed and cried.

What?

Leslie Kaminoff made me cry.

How? Wait... why? WHAT?

He asked to work with me as a demonstration. I'd mentioned earlier in the day that I was in a car crash a long time ago that fractured my T12 vertebra.

I said okay.

He had me lie down with my knees over a bolster, and then he put a hand on my belly and mooshed his fingers around. He had me notice the amount of tension in my abdomen and pointed out that my muscles were pretty active for a person lying down and doing nothing but breathing.

We'd learned that breathing is shape change. We'd learned that the abdominal cavity contains non-compressible stuff, so it changes shape but not volume, like a water balloon, while the thoracic cavity contains the lungs (and other stuff), so it changes shape and volume, like an accordion.

When I breathe in, my lungs and rib cage have to expand, which means my non-compressible juicy bits have to poof out somewhere. But whoops, my belly muscles are holding everything in, which makes it impossible for me to take a full breath.

It's been 11 years since the car crash.

My bones and muscles healed beautifully. I worked damn hard on healing my movement ability, too. No one ever told me that maybe I could heal my breathing, or that I'd even need to. My breathing was fine, better than normal according to the machine with the floating ball and tube thingy in the hospital.

In 2005, one year after my spine fractured, I had no reason to believe that I wasn't fully recovered, except I couldn't dance. Specifically, I couldn't pirouette. I told myself "It's okay, you're alive, you can still teach, you love yoga" and I carried on.

In 2007, I had surgery to remove vocal nodes — my otolaryngologist told me the nodes had developed from overusing my voice, and have I ever considered a speech pathologist and a singing coach? No, but sure, off I went, adding to my existing team of physical therapists, massage therapists, Pilates teachers and yoga teachers. 

No one told me I wasn't breathing fully.

Then, I learned about the water balloon and the accordion.

This is what I remember happening as I lay there, under Leslie's hand.

• Breathe in.
• Breathe out. Hold the breath out.
• Engage belly muscles, try to push Leslie's fingers out as he pushes in.
• Disengage belly muscles. Relax completely.
• Inhale. (Leslie lets go.)
• Inhale some more.
• Inhale even more.
• Inhale so much it feels like a yawn that is yawning.

The release after that infinity-inhale was like sliding into a warm bath. I feel more soft and relaxed than I've ever been while fully awake and aware. Leslie leads me through a few more repetitions of the sequence, and that's when something in my spine unlocks.

It's sudden and scary and completely unexpected.

My entire history of spinal injury and breath-related trauma is rushing through my subconscious at this point. I'm not thinking thoughts, I'm feeling them run through my body. After more than a decade of restricted breathing, my nervous system has no clue what's going on.

I feel the panic rising.

My body is convinced I'm in danger. My ribs are moving with my breath — that's what it is. I feel unstable. Something is moving that should not be moving, something that has not moved for many years, not since everything around it broke. I start trembling.

Leslie talks softly to me. I can't remember the words. I'm falling through the floor, through space, totally out of control. 

Leslie keeps talking and he strokes my forehead. "This is natural. This is expected. You're doing great." I realize I've been sobbing. 

My fingertips start tingling after a few seconds. I mention this. Oh, it's the beginnings of hyperventilation. Hold the breath out. Wait for the inhale. That's all.

There's more belly-mooshing with Leslie's fingers, more gentle coaching to let the breathing happen. My bucket handles and pump handles are moving so much that the soft tissue of my upper chest gets an uncomfortable stretch with each inhale.

I am simultaneously freaked out and overjoyed.

Just as my conscious mind starts to enjoy the awesomeness of this newly enormous breath, my belly muscles start to lock down.

I remember practicing prāṇāyāma in the hospital. Lying there unable to move, ujjayi breathing gave me a sense of control. That's what's happening at this point. My get-a-grip survival habits are kicking in, hardening my abdominal wall and constricting my throat.

Leslie is still mooshing and smoothing. I'm sure he can feel me tensing up, and I tell him that I'm trying to relax and not fight it but it's not working.

He says that his hand is having a conversation with my belly that is wholly independent of "what's happening up here," gesturing to our faces. Leslie mooshes a little deeper and wiggles my right thigh, rotating it at the hip joint. "Can you feel that moving under my hand? That's your psoas. Kinda cool."

He keeps going with the mooshing and wiggling, and my body starts to feel more solidly on the floor. As I relax, my breathing gets much less big and deep. Right when I take a purposefully large inhale because I'm trying to be a really good demonstration person, Leslie says, "See how little of a breath you can get away with. You don't need much for just lying here."

The teeny tiny breath, he explains, is the opposite end of the spectrum from the huge breath. There's an obsession in yoga with stretching further and going deeper. Leslie suggests that we spend some practice time at the other extreme to see how that feels and experience a different context.

Everything gets fuzzy after that.

I sit up suuuper slowly and try my newly expanded breath in a different orientation to gravity. It is exhilarating. My vision seems sharper than usual.

Leslie helps me stand, again in super slow motion. I feel like I'm surfing the wobbly earth. He coaches me to roll down and hang out in a standing forward fold for a while. He tips me backwards onto him, resetting my body's relationship to gravity in that shape. He sets me back up onto my own feet and I roll up from there.

He asks if I'm okay. I do an awkward nod-shake-nod, and he says, "It's okay to not be okay."

---

I'm still processing this new information. There's a great big lot of it, in my nervous system, my muscles, my emotions, everywhere. I'm crying as I'm sitting here typing, feeling grateful and amazed and a little bit pissed.

I know that what I experienced is a high-water mark, not a pivot point, like "Yay, my breathing is fixed forever! Pirouettes for days! Thanks for the belly-moosh, LK!" 

Nope.

There's work to be done. My habits creep back into my body, my saṁskaras of 11 years will die hard, and I will feel every bit of that burn.

This is my new yoga practice. My tapaḥ. My sacrificial fire that transmutes my offerings, fueled by breath.

The Yoga of CrossFit

Those two don't go together, right? Well...

My CrossFit journey started this time last year, in May 2014. CrossFit Oahu set me up with my own personal training coach, Christine "Wojo" Wojciehowski, who patiently walked me through all the basics of common CrossFit movements and terminology. EMOM. AMRAP. 1RM. OHS. HSPU. WOD.* And so on.

An alignment nerd after my own heart, Coach Wojo was meticulous in her observation and feedback. "Initiate from your hips." "Keep the spine neutral." Even better, she reminded me over and over, "Write this workout down, and note the weight you used." She said, "You'll be surprised at how far you'll have come in a month." Or two months. Or a year.

I learned how to modify exercises I couldn't do yet, like handstand push-ups. I learned the difference between a push press and a push jerk. I learned that it doesn't matter how much weight you put on your barbell if you haul it up with a disorganized spine and janky kinematic rhythm, kind of like doing arm balances in yoga. I learned to be uncompromising in my form and unperturbed by others' "performance," also like yoga. And, I learned to keep a detailed logbook.

Rewind 10 more years. In May 2004, I'd just taken my first steps without the support of a titanium back brace. A drunk driver had hit my vehicle, and my spine broke in the crash. During the long recovery, my casual yoga practice turned into a serious dedication to pranayama — mindful, full body breathing. I ached to move my body more, but I couldn't even sit up in bed by myself. I couldn't walk to the bathroom. I was a yogini, a dancer, a theatre actor, and I was bedridden.

That Stephanie didn't have a logbook. In fact, I deliberately avoided leaving any evidence of my brokenness. I refused photographs, and I abandoned my journal. "This is not me," I told myself. I envisioned the story of my life blipping over the months of recovery, a blurry non-event, like the third grade photos that never quite made the family album. (I hid them. It was the '80s. Sorry, Mom.) It was denial as an attempt at bravery.

When I had a bad day, I assumed all my days henceforth would be bad. When I had a good day, I assumed all my days henceforth would be good, until the next bad day came along. I had no way of removing the emotional blinders of trauma to view my healing process clearly. Through all of the ups and downs, the overall trend was definitely upward, but if you asked me on a bad day I'd report otherwise.

When I finally stepped onto my yoga mat again, I cried with fear and with freedom. I had indelible knowledge that I was not invincible — I could and would break — but I wasn't dead. Each practice was a victory, and I could feel something starting to happen inside, something slowly getting stronger, more confident, less fearful and fragile. I committed myself to the yogic principles of non-violence, consistent practice, and self-study. Still, I avoided my journal.

As a result, when I pressed up into my first headstand after the crash, I had no clue how I got there. The headstand press was a monumental achievement, concrete evidence that I was healing beautifully. Sure, I'd been working on it, but for how long? And how often? What poses preceded the successful attempt? It was magical and I didn't care... until I couldn't do it again.

My mind raced: What did I do? What didn't I do? What's wrong??

No breadcrumbs. No way to get back to where I once was. I practiced on, but I admit, every time my body overcame a physical challenge it seemed like a happy accident. When I finally got another headstand, I thought, whoops, I guess that's cool.

Back to my first "real" CrossFit WOD last year, my very first experience of working out with the fire breathers, the twice-a-weekers, and the newbies like me, all in the same group. It reminded me of my very first yoga class: I knew I had the basics down and yet I still felt clueless.

My WOD book from that time lists my maximum effort particulars:

• Snatch 1RM — 25 lbs
• Deadlift 1RM — 65 lbs
• Pull-ups — 1 rep, using the thickest resistance band for assistance
• Push-ups — 2 reps, wobbly ones, from my knees

I couldn't run 200 meters without feeling like I wanted to throw up, or go home, or both.

Now, 12 months later, I'm regularly snatching 70 lbs, deadlifting 135 lbs. I'm still working on that one unassisted strict pull-up. It's coming. I can do standard push-ups in quick sets of 5, and last week I did my first hand-release push-ups, a plyometric movement that requires explosive strength, stability, and hardcore confidence. I regularly run 800 meters in under 4 minutes, which is further and faster that I ever have in my life. All of this without even considering puking. Win.

And double win: I know my strength and skill are not happy accidents. I've traced my steps. Before 135 lbs, I lifted 130 lbs. Before that, 125. I can look up the dates. I can find my way back.

CrossFit (and Coach Wojo) taught me that recording my progress is key to feeling accomplished, to knowing what exactly has changed and by how much. After each WOD, I write down how many reps I did, at what weight, and sometimes how fast. I note when my form started to break down, when and if I dropped down in weight as the workout went on, and a number of other factors that affect my work, like sleep and nutrition and stress level.

Logbook = journal with total objectivity.

I do not log my workouts to determine whether I'm strong or weak, better or worse, awesome or lamesauce; rather, I record my observations like a scientist so I have clear data on myself at an exact point in time. Furthermore, I have evidence that the work happened. I definitely did something. On a definite date. At a definite weight. For a definite length of time. It's all here in the logbook.

Call it outcome-focus. Fixation. Call it vanity, even. Too goal-oriented to be yoga.

Or, call it self-awareness. Call it a mindfulness practice, with supportive notes. Documenting landmarks on the endless journey. Small, daily affirmations with this simple proof: "Today, I did this." No subjectivity. No inner monologue of judgmental chatter. That 80-lb barbell came off the floor 30 times. For sure. And I felt like a badass.

And then, weeks later, I get to feel like a badass again when I re-read my notes.

There are still ups and downs, and charting out my growth over the last year clearly and unequivocally shows that the trend is upward. I might have a down day, or a down week. But now I have data that show I'm putting one foot in front of the other on a regular basis and I am getting somewhere. I have evidence that my down days consistently lead to up days.

Discouraged by a string of missed workouts? Derailed by the holidays? Flip flip flip the pages. Oh right, I'm a badass on a badass journey. Motivation, check.

Here's the yoga of CrossFit.

The practice of CrossFit, or yoga, isn't goal-driven if you don't have a goal. Case in point: I don't care what weight ends up being the heaviest lift of my life. I don't have an arbitrary goal time or goal number of reps in mind when I work out. Every time I step into the box, I'm focused on being the best that I can be that day: giving my whole heart, observing without judging, breathing. And every time I step onto my yoga mat, I'm focused on the exact. same. thing.

I am compassionately, non-violently celebrating my strength.

I am dedicated to consistent practice.

I am committed to knowing myself as I am, being curious about my growth, and accepting myself as I change.

There have been times when I look back on the just-finished WOD and think, "Oh boy, I'm a wreck. Everyone else was lifting way more than I was. I'm way outta my league." Like the bedridden Stephanie of years past, I want to erase the feelings of inadequacy by refusing to document the weak spot. But I grab my logbook anyway, and I write down the weight I did, the time, the reps... And there it is, in shaky blue ink, my weight, time, and reps from a similar workout a few months ago.

I may not be the strongest in the box, but I am the strongest Stephanie Keiko Kong that ever lived, and I've got the log to prove it.

P.S. Thanks, Coach Wojo.

*For the uninitiated and desperately curious:

• EMOM = every minute on the minute
• AMRAP = as many reps/rounds as possible
• 1RM = one rep max, the amount of weight lifted in a single maximum effort
• OHS = overhead squat, a standard squat with a barbell held overhead
• HSPU = handstand push-up
• WOD = workout of the day, always different, always challenging, always scalable to individual needs