When I opened Becca's email containing her responses, here is what it said: I'm very happy to revise anything that isn't clear or is too fart-related. I knew we'd made an excellent selection. Becca has been making it to her mat with us for years, often with her husband, Justin, by her side, and we admire her dedication to practice.Read on for more yoga realities, the good and the fart-related:
Namaste Highland Park: When did you first find yoga and what were your intentions or expectations for your first class?
Becca: I first came to yoga after back-to-back endurance events: a 50 mile ultramarathon which I followed up by immediately going to Berlin & walking around for a week. When I got home the soles of my feet were literally too tender to stand on so I decided it was time to find a whole new - hopefully gentler - way to get to know my body. My favorite part of ultrarunning was the meditative time & space it carved out in my life, but I was working too much at the time to keep it up, and that was another hope I had for starting yoga - to find time within the more typical routines and itineraries of my life to be alone amongst others.
I was also hoping yoga could be less goal-oriented than the kind of athletics I normally did, like triathlon or other endurance events. Yoga is full of small goals, and I love it because I get to see at least at little bit of progress every time I practice. But the very fact that we call it a "practice" is what I hoped for and have come to love - it is a thru line, an open-ended, long-term process rather than aimed at a specific date and achievement. In the past I have felt a little manic with my athletics - working so hard towards one horizon, and then feeling aimless and burned out once I got there. With yoga my horizon keeps deepening.
NHP: What is your next goal in your practice?
Becca: On an asana level, I'm working on Becca's 3 Big Blocks: crow, pinchy-raya-flores (pincha mayurasana that I always mispronounce as my good friend & yoga teacher Ani Raya-Flores' name) and hand stand.
I don't know what my deal is with crow - I landed it the first time I tried it and its been 3 years of mystery since then. The other two tie into the central block of my life - I'm pragmatic and careful above all else, and I really don't want to be ass over kettle without a strong foundation. I can headstand till the cows come home but I hate breaking that connection with the ground. So that's the next & larger goal - enjoying and trusting that severing.
I'm also working on developing my home practice. I love going to the studio but also want to expand what I can do on my own, how I can learn to sequence to relate different poses and practices to one another in my own head, as well as to cut out the excuse not to practice if I just can't make it to the studio here or there.
Becca: I grew up as a long distance swimmer which is basically just one big water treadmill. I loved it and still do, but I love yoga for the sheer variety and creativity within a common repertory of movement, and I love a class that asks me to surprise myself a couple times. Swimming masked my prodigious sweatiness better though.
NHP: Are your friends (or family or partner) grateful for your yoga practice? Why?
Becca: Yoga has actually helped my husband become a morning person, which has given us 2 to 3 hours together most mornings that we didn't used to have. I began going to yoga in the mornings (see: growing up as a swimmer/morning person), then he started coming too, and now we get up by 6 most days, even if we don't practice. Having yoga in our lives has given us a shared deliberateness and helped us recognize our desire for quiet time together before the day begins.
NHP: What is something we'd be surprised to know about you?
Becca: I'm not necessarily happy with this, but the first and strongest impulse I have to answer this question is to talk about farting in yoga. Not personally, though I did do it once. But I just really really love when one slips out of someone in class. It's the funniest thing in the world. Just fills me with immediate joy.
Maybe you didn't need a yoga related answer here, in which case... I just learned to snap my fingers. I've been trying for 31 years and I just got it! Maybe things are looking good for crow after all.
NHP: Where can we find you when your not at Namaste?
Becca: Probably working! I'm a TV producer and have recently set up my own company, so that's the full time gig in my brain right now. My husband and I also rescued a dog who has needed a lot of time and care - luckily his medicine makes him VERY flatulent, so you know I've been having a good time.
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