7/04/2014

My First Love

Hey everyone! It's been a long time since I've shared here. Much has changed and I have grown-duh.

Teaching has become a beautiful thing for me but some recent speed-bumps have gotten in the way of teaching Bikram Yoga so I am taking a break from it.  I continue to explore my purpose here in this body through yoga. Because it is my purpose.

Since I last wrote, I've completed a couple 30 day challenges. I've  sweat through my first advanced class (ouf). I grabbed my foot and rotated my shoulder in king pigeon pose which was a HUGE opening in body and mind that inspired a month of taking it easy for my aching back. I can hold handstands and am now experimenting with different shapes.

I also still wish that staring at pictures of flexible people would magically make me flexible too. While this may not be the case, I have embraced my strengths and embraced handstands in my home practice. I am currently experimenting with a newly found Ashtanga yoga practice.

I spent a couple of weeks last summer at Ashtanga Yoga research Center in Bali, Indonesia  with Radha and Prem. Here I learned the very basics... and I mean basics of the physical practice. We are talking Sun Salutation A and B (I was a sun salutation and Ashtanga Yoga virgin and as a result went with no expectations and learned so so much). I was also taught to other asanas. Here the postures were taught to me as I was ready to receive them.  I have also recently taken a teachers intensive with Manu Pattabhi Jois  with a blessing to share my knowledge and another Ashtanga intensive with Danny Paradise . This was a bit closer to home in Whistler, Canada. All of this exploration has been in an effort learn more about my first love-my body- and to to challenge myself to find yoga in a different situation.

My home and personal Ashtanga practice however is inconsistent but I am on day 3 of a 30 day personal challenge.  Whether it is for 10 minutes or an hour, every morning, I salute the sun. A great resource and inspsration for me has been Kino MacGregor. I enjoy her primary series DVD, and following her daily yoga- inspiration on instagram. All of these wanderings outside of the Bikram bubble has shown me that we are all talking about the same thing, same goal, yoga is universal in many lineages as long as you aim true, find a good teacher (best of all yourself), and be honest when your flowy yoga class is really just a distraction... or as boss says- just mental masturbation.

It is after all that hot sweltering day when nothing is going right when you can go within and find the peace within yourself. You get to where body and mind are one, you gaze inward to the universe to find space and truth.  Many types of yoga get you there.... .

Thanks for reading.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Unknown said...

Wonderful blog post on online yoga workout. You know I never heard about king pigeon pose earlier, and never seen this pose before. I will also try to do this pose at my home, as I love doing Yoga. Yoga is an exploration that is done by only great efforts. Thanks for sharing new yoga steps with us.

Unknown said...

nice info,
i love yoga and going to daily my class Yoga Teacher Training India

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