My Swedish grandmother served limpa for ceremonial family dinners and special occasions. Limpa is a dense rye bread, enlivened by pungent seeds, and sweetened with molasses and brown sugar to offset the bitterness of the orange peel.

It’s been years since I last tasted limpa. Somehow the fragrance of the crushed seeds and the orange peel put me in a virtual time capsule, transporting me back to my grandmother’s kitchen, and the teasing and storytelling that enlivened our family gatherings there.

Now the bread is rising, aromas wafting throughout our home. I wonder what else will come to mind when my husband and I enjoy our first taste of limpa later today. What stories will we tell each other over lunch? It’s a nice thought to look forward to.

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Despite my feelings about the article’s editorial stance, over time it has had a positive impact on my yoga practice.

It caused me to reassess what classes to take, what teachers to follow, and what practices or styles of yoga to avoid.

I’m now more clear about what’s right for me (and why). This helps me be more authentic — especially when I choose not to do a pose or to perform the easier variation instead.

Sadly I now take fewer classes as a consequence of being more selective. The good news: the teachers are better, and I’m learning more — lessons that I can apply both in class and at home.

How to Avoid Injury in Yoga

Here’s what I’ve concluded from this reassessment process:

• Avoid over-crowded classes where it’s impossible for the teacher to pay enough attention to each student
• Avoid teachers who lack hundreds of hours of teacher training
• Avoid yoga class environments that promote yoga as exercise (the latest faddish workout)
• Be aware of your body’s vulnerabilities and where to pay extra attention during practice
• Take responsibility for communicating with the teacher before class, to ensure she understands what you’re dealing with today

Those are basic requirements to avoid risky conditions. But the choice of teacher is even more important.

Choose Your Teacher(s) Carefully

It’s taken awhile for me to recognize this, but it’s incredibly important to choose yoga teachers based on their instructional techniques — how well the teacher:

• delivers instruction about the yoga asanas
• demonstrates what she’s asking students to do
• interacts with students who don’t know how to apply those instructions to their own bodies
• recognizes and clarifies confusion
• corrects or guides someone into proper alignment

Having had the benefit of several exceptionally skillful teachers in small class settings, I’m now very aware of the difference between really good instruction and run-of-the-mill classes.

Teaching Methods Need to Improve

Steeped in the ancient spiritual and cultural traditions of India, yoga has been slow to adopt more effective teaching and communication styles. The teaching tradition has tended to be one of disciples emulating their gurus.

Immersed in these traditions, the typical yoga teacher errs by using terminology or phrasing that is poorly understood by students. The language is lyrical, evocative, full of beautiful imagery — but sadly, too ambiguous and easy to misinterpret.

This beautiful stone tracery, seen during a recent visit to La Alhambra, reminded me of my experience of a typical yoga class: poetry and grace in motion, strength, balance — but with language that means little to the uninitiated.

Here the calligraphy is integral to the design but conveys nothing to an English speaker. Let’s be honest: the same is true of Sanskrit pose names when used with beginning students.

Even when teachers stick to English, problems emerge when the language is ambiguous, as with these instructions:

• “Open your heart”
• “Set your foundation”
• “Snug your shoulder blades against your back”

I’ve been practicing yoga for 3 years, but it has taken me that long to recognize the risks of not understanding the optimal bio-mechanics of key poses. It took a few thankfully minor injuries to reveal how much I still need to learn.

So I’ve returned to classes for beginners, those led by exceptionally clear teachers with superior communication skills. I want to master yoga’s foundational asana principles before resuming classes with teachers whose guidance is better at conveying the spiritual aspects of yoga rather than the physical asanas.

Where Are the Best Teachers?

Today the teachers I find most helpful have hundreds of hours of teacher training, and at least as many hours of actual instructional experience. They are highly attuned to how well their students are actually learning and putting their lessons into practice.

Some earn their living via “bodywork,” so they have a deep hands-on understanding of anatomy and the principles of body mechanics.

Some are exceptionally gifted at knowing how to demonstrate a pose or key aspects of a concept. They link their poetic instructional language to unambiguous demonstrations, slowing down the motion or pose dynamics to make it crystal clear what they mean. They keep the class focused on practicing this approach until we have a taste of what it feels like to do it properly.

The teachers I seek out today know how to help students move toward the optimal muscular-skeletal alignment, combined with the breath. They see when I’m out of alignment, or failing to balance “effort with ease”; they know how to help me understand what I need to adjust.

Combined with my own improving mindfulness, it’s teachers like these who will help me minimize my risk of injury — and ensure the blessings of a lifelong practice.

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The question is, in an amped-up, caffeine-fueled, texting/tweeting world of constant distractions, is there a place for silence in business? That is, can a more beautifully silent space lead to better writing?

Or is this a question whose answer varies by age, with time for silence or contemplation a concept that appeals more powerfully to people over 40?

Do people write better, think more clearly, if they have the luxury of doing so in an environment that screens out noise and distractions? Does focus lead to better writing, content that’s more likely to resonate with others? Can a blank canvas invoke more creativity?

It’s an interesting question, one that I think is best answered on an individual basis. It’s also possible that individual preferences are more situational, linked to time and place, or what you’re thinking or writing about. Or: who’s paying for your time and why…

A writer’s haven

If you’d like to experience the impact of distraction-free silence while writing, there’s a minimalist tool for Mac, PC and iPad users called “OmmWriter Dana.” It’s kind of a zen-like, Steve Jobs-inspired approach to the act of writing. Its Barcelona-based creators call it “a writer’s haven.”

OmmWriter Dana

The minimalist version can be downloaded for free to your Mac; a paid-version offers a broader selection of color schemes and audio themes designed to cultivate focus, contemplation and enhance creativity.

I’m using the basic version of OmmWriter to draft this blog post. OmmWriter enables me write the basic post, hiding the rest of my Macintosh environment (including turning off my secondary display where I normally scan incoming emails, tweets, etc.)

To turn this draft into a blog, I copy my draft, and then paste it into WordPress where I’ll add the appropriate HTML tags, category tags and so on. This separates the writing process from the markup process.

Whether this two-step approach enhances creativity is too soon to say definitively. What I do know is that the actual experience of writing with OmmWriter is more delightful than when writing a blog inside WordPress, LiveWriter, NotePad or any of the usual word processing tools.

Try it yourself, and see how it helps your writing.

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Since then I’ve been living on fruit smoothies and roasted garlic soup. The VitaMix has offered a refreshing way to deal with the unpleasant side-effects of a nasty cold. I’ve also tried other unconventional remedies.

My friend Jenny brought a box of Wellness Fizz tablets, Vitamin-C plus herbal supplements to dissolve in warm water. Consumed 3 or 4 times a day, Wellness Fizz claims to boost the immune system’s ability to fight back. Even so I’ve had to resort to Zicam, decongestants, restorative yoga and lots of sleep…

No miracle cures, only modest relief — but I’ve found some pleasant distractions.

With the Help of a Few Good Books

When too ill to socialize, exercise or work, listening to jazz and classical music can be wonderfully distracting. Likewise a good book or a riveting movie. Forced to slow down while recovering, I’ve found time for some fine books.

I loved Camilla Gibb’s The Beauty of Humanity Movement: A Novel.  Set in Vietnam, the story introduces an aging cook — an itinerant street vendor — famous throughout Hanoi for his pho. You learn about Old Man Hung, his history, the proper way to make a bowl of pho — and the experiences and people who’ve touched his life over the years. The story is richly embellished with the details of everyday life in Hanoi, thanks to the author’s background as a social anthropologist. You can almost smell the lemongrass and cilantro on every page…

From Vietnam to Paris, in just a few hundred pages.

This weekend I immersed myself in 1920s Paris with the Lost Generation, thanks to Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife. Her novel deals with Ernest Hemingway’s early struggles to become an author, and his years in Paris with his first wife, Hadley, “who loved him before he was famous,” as an Amazon reviewer wrote.

Although told from Hadley’s point of view, the story sheds some light on the experiences, adventures and troubled relationships that inspired Hemingway to write his first two novels, including the ground-breaking American novel, The Sun Also Rises. You’ll meet some of the luminaries of 20th century literature such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, Ford Madox Ford, among others.

After a vicarious weekend in Paris with artists and famous writers, I’m anxious to re-read Hemingway’s memoir of this period, The Moveable Feast — and learn the story through his eyes.

And as for this cold — Enough, already.

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Theirs is an inspiring story.

Lala, The Warrior Princess

They fight back with love and hope, with prayerful blessings from thousands of old and new friends and family. They use social networking to channel the love and fuel my niece’s spirits. My brother keeps us posted with his blog. While optimistic, they recognize that Lauren has begun a marathon, so they’re doing everything they can to stoke her fires and guide the energy in productive forms of healing…

Last week they feared for Lauren’s life: the tumors had become so aggressive and invasive that they were choking her very breath. It was a sudden onset: she checked into the ICU 10 days ago with what might have been pneumonia, but was instead a recurrence of nerve sheath cancer, this time wrapped around her bronchia.

This is deadly serious business, but my brother and his family look for affirmations of joy and wellness wherever they can.

Thanks to what my brother calls her warrior princess spirit, my niece fought back, regained control over her breathing, and got herself discharged from the hospital. This week she’s recuperating at home, and taking calls from Lyle Lovett and other celebrities who are inspired by her story. (She reacts as only a teenager would…)

No one on her medical team would have believed this to be possible last week. Her oncologist can only ascribe it to a miracle of love and community — the power of the human spirit — rather than the wonders of medical science.

Lala Needs You

You can help too. Join Lala, “the warrior princess,” and shower her with love and hopeful blessings. Join her Facebook group… Pray for her.

Dedicate your yoga practice to her.

You’ll be amazed at what might happen.

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Dave was enchanted by a recent biography of Dylan, written by a historian and Dylan fan, resulting in a fascinating exploration of the political, social and cultural milieu that informed Dylan’s art. Somehow we kept returning to the “tangled up” phrase during our conversation.

Since then the phrase, snatches of the song and images of blue have been reverberating in my head. A pleasing form of blues obsession…

And now the concept has morphed into “tangled up in green,” sparked the visual explosion of spring green everywhere I look here in the Pacific Northwest.

After a long grey and insanely rainy winter, this verdant fire is a feast for warmth-starved eyes.

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For a single purchase transaction of 4 tickets at $68.00 each, the ticket processing service will impose a $38 fee ($9.50 a ticket). Relative to value delivered, a 14% “tax” on each ticket is way out of proportion.

So the Early Music Guild and Seattle Baroque Orchestra lost out on 4 concert patrons, because their ticket processing service is too greedy (STG).

Too bad: it might have been a great performance.

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The police required a photo on my carte d’identité, a document to be carried at all times (or risk deportation). It was not enough to have a student visa… So duplicate photos, and a trip to the neighborhood photo booth.

To live in Paris as a legally documented resident meant supplying dozens of photos to a variety of institutions. (And often multiple copies for each piece of documentation.)

Photo IDs clipped to purpose-specific documents were required by the university, for class enrollment, student meals, etc. But they also afforded access to discounts on bus and metro passes, museum entry tickets, school books and student supplies.

It kept those photo booths busy…

Some of the photos were SO ugly that all you could do was laugh. So bad they could almost be taken for police mug shots…

So when Apple introduced Apple Photo Booth, a free app for devices with a built-in iSight camera, I had to laugh. To me shots taken in a photo booth reveal people in the least flattering ways possible. And no surprise: most photos shared via Apple Photo Booth are indeed unflattering… You won’t find me using that app.

Update 3/2/2011: Given Apple’s introduction of the new iPad 2 today, I may have to eat my words. Apple has promised a “new and improved” version of Photo Booth for the iPad 2 — an app that Apple claims is both lots of fun, as well as visually compelling. If that’s the case, you may find me back in “the virtual photo booth.”

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While wading through family records, I’ve rediscovered travel documents from my time as a student in Paris. They have triggered fond memories, and led to shared stories over dinner and a glass of wine.

Now that so much of the world has gone digital, some of the nostalgic magic of foreign travel has been lost. Does this imply our personal histories will be less rich, less redolent of memories triggered by old documents?

Just look at my student visa, for example. The colorful stamps, the distinctive shapes of different countries’ imprints. The handwritten details. It’s a cultural artifact from the pre-digital modern era.

Rhapsody in Blue

From the appearance of the original document, it’s clear that the French consular clerk was using a fountain pen to write my particulars on the visa. The style and color of the handwritten details are distinctively French. When I lived in Paris, everyone used fountain pens; and almost all pen cartridges were filled with the same shade of blue ink.

That pervasive shade of blue is inextricably linked to that milieu, my student notebooks, the people of that time and place. To the love letters I wrote my boyfriend, now husband, from Paris — written with a fountain pen that often bled through the flimsy airmail stationery. Letters that appeared during my “archeological dig” into our family files.

Despite the convenience of writing on a keyboard, computer-generated documents lack the mystique of those penned letters. The foreign stamps, the sketches in the margins.

And with today’s digitally scanned and recorded border crossing protocols, my passport remains empty, no matter how many trips I take. So it’s hard to remember when I’ve traveled where…

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Case in Point: 1099 Forms

The effort of filing 1099-MISC forms is just one of the many ways that the federal government wastes small businesses’ time during tax season. The 1099 submittal process should be easy to modernize: the forms aren’t complicated, and don’t appear to change that often.

Preparing those forms should be quick and easy for business owners or bookkeepers, especially when using a good accounting tool, like QuickBooks. If you’ve coded your bookkeeping entries properly, all the source data is already stored in QB: from the amounts paid to each 1099 contractor, their name and address; to the EIN unique identifier the IRS uses for your business.

Alas, there is no intelligent link between QuickBooks and the 1099 forms.

Even though the IRS is perfectly happy to receive 1040 tax returns via an approved eFile resource, they do not allow small firms to file 1099 information forms electronically or fill in the Acrobat forms available on their web site.(There is, however, an enterprise-scale service for that.)

Here’s the friendly notice from the IRS, warning businesses not to use the Adobe Acrobat version of the 1099 input form:

This form is provided for informational purposes only. Copy A appears in red, similar to the official IRS form. Do not file copy A downloaded from this website. The official printed version of this IRS form is scannable, but the online version of it, printed from this website, is not. A penalty of $50 per information return may be imposed for filing forms that cannot be scanned.

You must file using the IRS’ preprinted forms, although there is a time-consuming method you can use with QuickBooks. The benefit of this approach is that the data will be faithful to whatever is stored in your accounting records. No risk of typos created during the form entry process.

The IRS apparently relies upon an antiquated method that was state-of-the-art back in the go-go days of typewriters and carbon paper for duplicate copies. They require firms to fill out multi-part 1099-MISC forms using a method that can be scanned easily by the IRS — or risk a $50 fine per return. It’s vital to the IRS that they receive Copy A of your 1099 form printed on their preprinted, red form.

I can’t help but wonder: if the banks can somehow manage to scan and process checks printed from QuickBooks, why can’t the government scan a form printed by QuickBooks? It’s not as if this is a design-intensive, highly variable document!

Today’s Solution for QuickBook Users

Today’s work-around is to print each page of the multi-part 1099 form separately – for each 1099 contractor – as explained here by Intuit, unless you have a continuous printer. Assuming you work out the alignment issues between QuickBooks and your laser printer, this method works just fine, but it requires considerable attention to detail and a lot of time. The more 1099 contractors you have, the more time it takes.

Be careful: the paper for all but the first copy of the 1099 form is flimsy. Your laser printer may jam if you try to rely upon automatic paper feeding, rather than printing one page at a time. Manual feeding, one sheet at a time, was the most reliable approach for my HP LaserJet P2055 printer.

In theory I don’t mind notifying the government what I’ve paid to independent contractors. But in practice I resent how much unproductive time must be spent to send this information to the IRS.

Let’s hope there’s a better way in 2012, given Obama’s call to streamline government’s impact on business.

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