Transcription of Carissa Ciuca for the show Maine YogaFest, #91
Dr. Lisa: I have really enjoyed watching the explosion of yoga that has taken place since I have been back in Maine following my medical school graduation then my work as a resident at Maine Medical Center. I used yoga myself when I was going through some challenging times with my running injuries and my small children.
To be here with Carissa Ciuca from the Breathing Room in South Portland and also Melanie Barns from Wicked Good Yoga and the Snow Squall Bed and Breakfast in Wiscasset is quite a privilege because I know that both of you are bringing yoga to your own parts of the State of Maine. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today about yoga.
Melanie: Thank you.
Carissa: Thanks for having us.
Dr. Lisa: Carissa, let’s start with you. The Breathing Room, why is it important that we breathe and why did you name your place the Breathing Room?
Carissa: I think that space to breathe and feel is my goal for the space. It’s just one room so the name grew out of the goal of the studio and the physical space itself. Obviously, it’s something that everybody wants at least once a day, a little room to breathe.
Breathing and feeling is very like I said the goal of our space. People spend their entire day deciding, managing and instructing, planning, going and when you come into our space, it’s a time to step back from that and have a little bit of sacred time to simply heal, to simply do one thing at a time, to simply breathe, experience your body, your mind and your back in a new way.
Dr. Lisa: You have two small children.
Carissa: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: You and probably along with many of the other people who are listening …
Carissa: Need some breathing room.
Dr. Lisa: Need some breathing room.
Carissa: Yes they do. My yoga practice is definitely helped me to be more pleasant mom, a mom who is able to play when it’s time to play and work when it’s time to work. To really tune into my own body, my own needs and translate that into what needs to happen for my family at any given time. That happens as a result of having a daily yoga meditation back practice for sure.
Dr. Lisa: Melanie, you also are able to offer people breathing room but in addition to the yoga you have this Bed and Breakfast. That’s a different breathing room on top of the breathing room of yoga.
Melanie: A lot of our guests say that when they come into the B&B they leave all of their cares behind. They exhale deeply. I do like to think that giving a little bit more breathing room. When people stay with us or in a different frame of mind on vacations, so they’re willing to try something different.
We’ve had teenagers take parents for yoga for the first time to experience their first time doing yoga together as a family and it’s such a beautiful gift so beautiful to witness.
Dr. Lisa: Both of you came from somewhere else I believe to Maine to bring yoga to the State with you. Why was it important that you come here?
Melanie: You want to go ahead?
Carissa: Okay. I moved here for my husband’s job. I have to be honest and tell you … and just say that we had never expected to live in Maine. We’d no idea that we would move here but once we were here, we were immediately in love the place and surprised that we hadn’t landed here already because it seemed to just align with what we wanted so much for ourselves and for our family.
Then once I was here I really wanted to bring a little bit of what I had experienced from yoga and from all the places that I had studied in other cities to the Portland area. I’ve been trying to do that through the Breathing Room.
Melanie: We came here from Bermuda believe it or not. My husband is a professional chef, he had a pub and when he retired we were looking for something else to occupy him. I’m originally from Massachusetts but my godmother lives in Biddeford.
I was coming to Maine for summers and I just loved Maine. We looked at about I would say 15 bed and breakfast all up the coast. Not just Maine but in New Hampshire, in Massachusetts, Upstate New York, Vermont and this is the first one that we saw was in Wiscasset. We just fell in love with it so we had to be here.
Dr. Lisa: Is that a unique idea to offer yoga and a bed and breakfast under the same roof?
Melanie: I haven’t seen a lot of them. It was a dream of mine when I first looked at the barn. When I first saw it I thought this would be an amazing space for yoga and I wasn’t teaching yoga at the time. I was still commuting back and forth to Bermuda when we first bought the place. Over time it became a dream that was realized and I’m so glad we did.
Dr. Lisa: We talked about why Maine but why yoga? What was it that initially drew you to practice this ancient practice?
Carissa: When I finished college I got a job working second chef. Then at the time I was 21. I thought this was great. I’ll go to the beach in the morning. I’ll go to work. I’ll get off at 10:00, it’s going to be fantastic. It didn’t take me very long to realize that all of my friends had gotten jobs working 9:00 to 5:00. By the time I was going into work they were getting off, when I was getting off they were going to bed and I started to feel very lonely.
I was spending a lot of time up really late and then sleeping in super late in the morning and realizing within myself that I needed some healthy practice to get me up in the morning, something that I could dedicate myself to.
I decided to try yoga and immediately realized the benefits of not just the physical practice but the mind, body practice as well. Everything shifted. I got out of that job I found a more structured life. I started to feel myself in a different way and just continued to practice for a long time before I decided to become a teacher. It really saved me from loneliness and probably the beginnings of depression.
Melanie: For me I was living in Somerville after college and I played three sports in college. I was the captain of my softball team, I played basketball and volleyball. Being physically active was really important to me and I was driving by Mass Ave and I kept seeing this glass with a big orange dot on it. I said what goes on in there?
I started to ask people, what goes on in there? They said, “My sister does this yoga and my friend does this.” They said it’s like going to church, getting a massage and having sex all at the same time. My god I’ve got to try this. I stepped into my very first yoga class with Baron Baptiste and he’s since become this amazing worldwide, world known teacher.
It was so much fun. I think in my first … because I didn’t know what I couldn’t do, so I had this beginners lined and I remember being in both paradise and hopping in a full circle. I probably looked absolutely ridiculous but it was so much fun.
It was such a great way to get out of your head for me. I think a lot of us would have like 90% of our lives above the shoulders, so for me getting into the body, being able to dive under the waves into what’s below the surface was such a beautiful experience and I just kept going.
I had started scheduling my vacations after I moved to Bermuda around yoga boot camps with Baron and I ended up going to about 10 of them. They were all teacher trainings. I had no intention of teaching but I was learning so much and I witnessed other people transform and it was so powerful that I thought I really need to share this. Eventually I got certified to teach.
Dr. Lisa: It’s funny because title nine enabled girls’ to play sports and women to play sports in a more equal playing field. In some ways it brought women and girls to their bodies in a way that had never really been possible before and yet it didn’t really. It gave us the ability to play sports but I’m not sure that it always connected us to our bodies in a very positive way. Yoga sounds like has enabled people to really come back to a meaningful way of making that connection.
Melanie: Yeah, I think absolutely its personal work but it’s done in community. I think people can dive a little bit deeper but … and then once they start to share their experience, the community forms around it. I think sometimes that’s a little bit different with team sports. You can have that as well but there’s a lot of competition. There’s so much competition.
It’s always get ahead to be first and I think with yoga because people get so focused on their own, they’re only focusing on being better than they were yesterday rather than being better than somebody else. I think that’s a different type of focus and it’s more of an inner journey than looking around and looking outside.
Dr. Lisa: Is there … ever though people trying to compete with other people who are in yoga? I would like to believe that it’s all inner, but I wonder if maybe people maybe sometimes are looking around the room and saying, “Can I go deeper than that person?”
Carissa: I think that we live our lives that way. At work and in our neighborhoods, in our schools with our children and so it’s hard to break that habit when you come to yoga mat. I think that over time and that’s part of the magic of yoga that you start to realize the inner work and over time that side of the ego starts to fade somewhat.
I think I just have to be compassionate with my students when I see it happening because how hard is it to live that way 99% of the time and then come to your mat and attempt something different, take some time, and that’s why it’s a life long practice. That’s something that we’ll all be working on no matter how many years of practice we have under our belts.
Melanie: I think it shows up in people’s bodies because we say people want to get ahead, so the head’s forward, the shoulders are rounded forward and a lot of the work that we do physically is changing the body and changing the mind at the same time, so it back bends. It’s the antidote to sitting. Sitting has become the new smoking, so back bends feel great. It help open up the hip flexors. You just see people change over time with consistent practice. Three times a week they start to stand differently, they hold their head differently and their chest starts to lift up. It’s just so beautiful to witness.
Dr. Lisa: Do you find that people come into the studio better able to do a front bend versus a back bend or did they have some hitches in their side, so they can’t always do a pose that you’re trying to get them to do. Do you find that they are frustrated with that?
Melanie: For me we always offer modifications and I always people before they come in do you have any injuries? What’s going on to you? Maybe it’s because I’m a massage therapist that people tell me because they know I’ll give them a little massage while they’re practicing or we always offer modifications like the bend the knees if you have issues in your lower back or forward bends or take a block between your knees or support yourself in the back bend.
I think there’s … a lot of people have this idea that Charles Darwin said that the strongest survive but he actually said it’s supposed to adapt that survive. It’s the adaptability, the ability to just show up as you are and not struggle, not resist, not fight so much goes into that and to see if you can relax in every pose.
Carissa: I see a lot of people resisting modifications though because they feel if I have to take a block or if have to drop a knee or if I have to take a beginners variation of this posture then I’m not good enough or I’m not the best here. Again, it’s just competing against that ego where you have to be the best or go the biggest back bender in the room.
One thing that I do is I train and the teachers in our space really work to find compassionate ways to offer modification so that it doesn’t come across as wimping out or not being the best but really is more about finding what works best for you and your body, and taking a different route when you’re on your mat than you take the rest of your time in your life.
Dr. Lisa: The reason I asked is because when I personally have done yoga I know I’m really good at back bends are really good at twists. I’m actually not able to touch the floor completely with my hands. It makes me feel like somehow this is a fundamental. Why can’t I do this? Why can’t I when I’m downward facing dog like actually get my heels all the way to the floor.
I get frustrated with myself when I’m going through that and sometimes I think it becomes an impediment to just really going deeper.
Carissa: Fighting with that in your mind is part of the practice. I think that you’ve even aware of that stuff happening and aware that you’re dealing with that in yourself is the first step. To answer the other part of the question, your heels not touching the floor could be anatomical. Your bone are at the length they are and sometimes some people feet touch the floor, sometimes they don’t.
You’ve mentioned being a runner so obviously there are some things I’m sure in your body that will make your yoga practice a little different. I think that everybody shows up with those things.
There are a lot of things that I can’t do with the yoga teacher that I would love to be able to do too. Just acknowledging that you have that thought process and that you’re aware of it in your own body is the first step. You’re actually I would say more advanced on the yoga path than someone who’s not even aware at all.
Melanie: I think you need to work to a healthy degree within your own body. You go to your edge but not past it. You challenge yourself and listen. You are your best teacher. Nobody else knows what it’s like to be in your body and to have different challenges or different changes.
The whole thing with getting the heels to the floor and down talk, everyone thinks that’s great. Your bouncing stability and freedom, having a very short pause with your heels to the floor is very stable. You don’t get a lot of freedom. There’s no freedom so walk back, make it a little wider.
There’s always a little bit more opportunity to balance between stability and freedom.
Carissa: When we teach that the length of the spine is [transob 00:41:33]. Whether or not your heels touch the floor as a teacher I really could ever care less but if you have length in your torso, length in your spine, plenty of space for your breast to move then I’d say your down dog is too perfect.
Dr. Lisa: I feel much better now. Those must be the reasons that I’m having you both in my show. I’ve noticed that both of you are very dedicated to teaching and I know you are both taking the time to teach at the Maine Yoga Fest. Carissa teaching is a big part of what you do at the Breathing Room. You had people from around the country really come in and help with your teacher training program.
Carissa: The space has really grown into this little community of people who are really interested in learning. You have plenty of continuing education workshops as part of our teacher training. I feel so lucky to have all the teachers that come and visit. Some that we’ve had, Grace Joel is a teacher who is a scholar and resident from Kripalu who has 22 years of anatomy experience.
Being with her and listening to her lessons are profound. Sue Jones has come and discussed the neurology in the neuroscience of yoga and how deep breathing, meditation practice and yoga practice can really change the way your brain responds to trauma.
She’s been doing a lot of work with victims of trauma and disaster throughout the world. It’s really just a gift to have her in Portland and in our space training our teachers and yoga students.
Dr. Lisa: Now, not all yogis are created alike. There’s Vinyasa, there is the work that you Melanie have done with Baron Baptiste. A yoga class is not a yoga class. Why did each of you choose the type of yoga that you’ve chosen? Give me a little bit more background because people who are listening may just be thinking yoga, it’s just yoga. How about you Melanie?
Melanie: For me the hot power of Vinyasa practice really gets me into my body and I like the physical challenge of feeling my body twisting, moving, sweating and heat helps me release tension deeply and also takes me a little bit more into my physical body. It’s very grounding and rooted for me.
I also love ying yoga. We teach ying at the studio, also restorative yoga. I’ve had teachers come in from different studios to come in and do workshops on all different types. We do myofascial release and we’re going to be doing a teacher training as well this year. We’ll have people from different studios and from other parts of the US come in and teach as well.
Carissa: The style of yoga that I teach and practice primarily is the Vinyasa, yoga which is actually very similar to what Melanie teaches and practices. The flowing type of yoga and Vinyasa translates as to plays in a special way. A lot of people think Vinyasa is connecting one breath, one movement. Flowing from posture to posture which is accurate but if you think of placing in a special way, placing a posture with a breathe and then you have only with one meditation, one thing to think about instead of 15,000 things going on in your life at one time.
For me there’s a lot of freedom in the practice just flowing and breathing but there’s a lot of ground in this too because it’s really informed by conscious alignment. That’s the kind of yoga that I primarily teach but at our studio we offer yoga, Ying yoga, prenatal yoga, gentle flower. There are lots of options for people if the flowing style of Vinyasa isn’t really your cup of tea.
Melanie: I have someone who comes to the studio said, “When I leave here I want to hug everybody and I’m not like that. What’s going on here? What is this magic?” I said, “You are like that under the surface you are like that. Sometimes we just need a reminder. You just need to remember.”
Carissa: I think overall people are looking for healing. They are feeling a loss of connection with other humans and with themselves and so they’re just seeking ways, how do I get together? Grace Joel, one of the teachers’ who comes to our space, one of her theories on why yoga is so popular is we need to as animals, as mammals, we need to be with our kind in a group, be breathing and moving together like a herd running across the field or something.
We crave this connection. We crave this healing with togetherness this unity. I think that’s part of the reason that yoga has become such a healing modality for lots of people.
Dr. Lisa: The actual definition of yoga really is unity.
Carissa: To connect, to unite.
Dr. Lisa: This also enables people to become more unified with theirselves. Melanie, you were talking about living life from the shoulders up. Is yoga something that can help people to integrate all the different aspects of their life into one?
Melanie: One of the sutras of Ptanjowe said it’s too still the fluctuations of the mind. He called it Chita Vriti. The constant chatter of the monkey mind that we take so much energy. It keeps us so externally focused.
One of the objectives is to still the fluctuations of the mind so you can go back into your own source energy, back into the divine connection that we all have and then connect to others that way.
Carissa: I like to tell my students sometimes in class, just think of on the drive to yoga class. How many things were you doing or thinking either one time? Even myself, I know myself I’m sitting at a stop light, I’m changing the channel on the radio, I notice this person crossing the road, checking my cell phone, I’m thinking about what we’re going to have for dinner. There are so many things. You can’t even connect with yourself. We live externally.
I think that coming into a class and spending some time in a different type of experience and giving your awareness and your experience a chance to connect in one place helps you realize yourself.
Melanie: I think just creating some space between who you are in that moment when you’re on your mat and everything else gives you some perspective. It gives you a different perspective to come back into your life and with the … just clearing a lens. It’s like wiping the mud off the windshield or mud season in Maine.
I think it’s just that space to be able to realize who you are in that one moment and create some distance, space, time and distance from that moment to the next.
Dr. Lisa: What classes will you be teaching at the Maine Yoga Fest coming up here in June?
Carissa: I’m teaching a course called sweat and surrender. We spend 45 minutes doing a Vinyasa practice and then 45 minutes doing restorative practice. I have an assistant coming with me for the assertive portions, so we can offer lots of nice hands on assist. It should be a nice experience.
Then teaching another class called the ground control to major lift off. We’ll study the bonders, the energy senders in the body and working on inversions and arm balances from the beginner’s mind. One of my favorite teachers’ says that, in the beginner’s mind there are lots of possibilities and in the experts mind there are few.
We’ll come back to beginner’s mind whether you’re actually a real beginner or you’ve been doing inversions and arm balances for a long time and just break it down and start from beginning all over again.
Melanie: I’m teaching be your own body worker. We work with myofascial release tools that were designed by someone who studying with Tom Myers and I’m studying with Tom as well. It’s working on the philosophy of Ida Ralph and Tom Myers of helping your body have a better relationship to gravity, just feeling better under your own skin.
We start by working down the back and then up the front. I’ve been teaching these classes at the studio for a while. They’re one of my most popular classes. They’re on 7:00 in the morning on a Saturday and I’m always amazed of how many people will show up for this two hour workshop. It’s a very deep body oriented meditation.
I think people need that right now so much. As we were saying external chatter just to get very deep into the body. I take them throught the shockers and also talk about places where we sometimes store emotions in the body. We have a physical body and emotional body, there’s a subtle body, spiritual body.
Also the shockers working on just helping release the hips. Helping release where we sometimes store so much emotion because we sit so much in this culture. The upper back and shoulders what you need to get off your back, off your chest, off your shoulders working down the back.
It’s a very rewarding class to teach. It’s one of my favorite classes. I’ll be teaching that and Katie Matsel is going to be singing live. She is an amazing musician from Maine. She’s also a yoga teacher. I’m looking forward to that.
Dr. Lisa: One of the things that has happened as a result of the yoga teacher training being offered more in the State of Maine also people in general practicing yoga is that we have more studios cropping up around Portland, around the State. How do studio owners negotiate this?
Melanie: My take on it is the more studios we have the more people have an opportunity to do yoga. It’s great for everyone. Rising tide lifts all boots. I think that’s really helpful. Different styles of yoga, some people will respond to a part of Vinyasa class some people won’t. They may need a restorative class. They may need a gentle class. The Kripalu style yoga is healing for a lot people. We offer that at the studio as well, but there’s all different types of yoga. I think the more studios, the more helpful it is. I don’t know, what do you think?
Carissa: I agree. In Portland so many of those studios have such a different flavor, personality, vibe and teacher so that no matter what you seek as a student there is a place for you and maybe today what you’re looking for is a different experience than you’ll need tomorrow.
The beauty of having so many offerings in our community is that whatever it is that you need as a student, there is an opportunity for you to have it. Like Melanie said, whether you need a restorative practice or heated practice or prenatal practice, there’s something available in our community for that. I think we’re really lucky that.
Dr. Lisa: Carissa, how can people find out about the Breathing Room?
Carissa: You can visit our website. It’s breathingroomme.com and you can find us on Facebook or we’d love for you just to stop by, visit our space, meet our teachers and try a class. We’re on Broadway 864 Broadway in South Portland.
Dr. Lisa: I should say that our very own John McCain has spent some considerable time over at the Breathing Room and also Steve Kelly who has been a past guest on our show and is also associate publisher with Maine magazine, Maine Home Design. He also has an affiliation with your studio. People go over there they will interact with the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour team in some way.
Carissa: We’d love to have them. That would be great.
Dr. Lisa: Melanie, how can people find out about Wicked Good Yoga and the Snow Squall Bed and Breakfast?
Melanie: Sure. You can visit our website www.wickedgoodyoga.com or snowsquallinn.com. We’re right off route one in Wiscasset the self-proclaimed prettiest village in Maine. If you might notice Red to Eat is right there. Come by and take a class. We offer about five classes a day. There’s plenty of different types of classes to sample. We’d love to see you.
Dr. Lisa: You’re both teaching at the Maine Yoga Fest so people can also drop in and take one of your classes there or sign up and take one of your classes there as well.
Carissa: Right. I think that tickets are available now. Some classes are selling out. If there’s an interest in attending it’s maineyogafest.com.
Melanie: If you want a discount WGY10 gets you a 10% discount off of your ticket.
Carissa: Or BR10.
Dr. Lisa: We are so fortunate that the two of you agreed and you didn’t even know each other, so it’s even better.
Melanie: I have nothing about love for her.
Carissa: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Actually both of you came very highly recommended from your parts of Maine. We’re fortunate that you were flexible enough and I get to see yoga training. Just come in and just spend the time two of you with me talking about yoga, the Maine Yoga Fest and the work that you do with Yoga. We’ve been talking to Carissa Ciuca from Breathing Room Yoga and also Melanie Burns of Wicked Good Yoga and the Snow Squall in Wiscasset. Thanks for coming in.
Melanie: Thank you so much.
Carissa: Thank you.