How is your new year starting off? Did you set intentions? What are you going to do differently this year? What seeds have you already planted that you want to see continue to grow? What are you ready to let go of and leave behind?
I returned to Los Angeles on Monday after a wonderful trip to Toronto and the surrounding area to see family and a few old friends and a very rejuvenating trip to New York to practice with my teacher Dharma Mittra and reconnect with some of the Dharma community.
I’m getting over being sick the last week. It feels amazing! I was feeling so rough last week. My body completely shut down. I’ve been pushing pretty hard the last few months and traveling a lot. My sleep has been pretty disturbed, after hopping from time zone to time zone. This is from an hour ago on the Temescal Canyon Trail. I’ve been hiking the last few days to build up my strength again. Not sick anymore but my body is still feeling pretty weak. It’s been ages since I’ve been hiking too and it feels so good to be back in nature. I’ve missed these incredible views and soaking up the energy of the forest. It’s been a really good year. There’s been ups and downs. Plenty of challenges. And lots of big breakthroughs. I feel like this year I planted a lot of seeds. And I let go of a lot of things that have been holding me back. And I know what I want in 2019. I can see it clearly.
Just a couple of reindeer working hard on a Friday! This is one of my assistant’s — Ashlee Brooks. We are working on a shot list for next week’s photo shoot with David Romero. Grateful for Ashlee, who has been helping me edit the Shiva Yoga 200hr and 300hr Asana Manual’s, and has been assisting with a number of other projects this year. Congratulations to Ashlee too, who finished my 200hr Shiva Yoga program in August, in Cabo San Lucas. Way to go Ashlee! Proud of you.
Flashback to 2015, with my yoga brother — David Romero! We were on our way to the Aegialis Hotel & Spa in this picture, for my yoga retreat on the Greek island of Amorgos. David did a great job assisting me on this retreat. We had such a rough trip from Los Angeles to Athens. There was a flight delay and chaos at LAX. I was so stressed. David did a really good job of staying calm and helping me navigate a really challenging situation. In the end, it all worked out (as things usually do), and we had an incredible week in Greece on the retreat. This was my first time in Greece, first time on the island of Amorgos, and first time at the Aegialis Hotel & Spa. What an incredible experience! I went back to the hotel 2 yrs later for the first Elysia Yoga Convention. I hope you can join me for the Elysia Yoga Convention next year March 28-April 4/2019. Such a special place.
Happy Thanksgiving! Really fun class this morning at Equinox Woodland Hills! Thank you to everyone who came out to practice. And thank you to those who brought donations for the food drive. You all practiced hard! You earned that extra scoop of ice cream! Have a wonderful holiday. Love to you and your family and friends. Grateful for each of you.
The yogi’s say there are an unlimited number of poses and variations. They also teach us that there are several, original, essential, archetypal poses. And from these poses we can see different categories of poses, or families of poses. There’s only so many ways we can anatomically move the body. There’s three areas of the body which provide most of the movement and which we primarily focus on in yoga asana practice — the Thoraco-lumbar spine, the hips, and the shoulders.
We had a very special Traditional Hawaiian Bonfire Ceremony on the last night of our retreat! Thank you to Makoa Quest for organizing and bringing us this experience. This was definitely a highlight of the trip for me. Hearing traditional stories about Maui and Hawaii, offering old patterns to the fire and letting them go, making a commitment to live the best possible life, setting new intentions, and a special Ava ceremony. Deep and powerful. And the words of the Hawaiian Cultural Practitioner aligned with all that we are practicing in our yoga practice. The truth is Universal. Grateful for this experience and to have been able to share it with my students. 🙏
The volcano Haleakala! It’s been dormant for almost 300 yrs. Incredible! I love the girls jumping in their Shiva Yoga shirts. Great shot! Maui has so much to see and explore. And the different parts of the island are so different. I will definitely be going back to explore a little more. Not enough time in just 1 week! And it’s so close — I can’t believe I haven’t been already until now. Beautiful! This incredible planet we live on. Let’s take good care of her and try to leave behind something better than what we found.
The breath is so important in a physical yoga practice. The yogis say, “if you can control your breath, you can control your mind.” Breathe deeply. Breathe down into the belly. This is called diaphragmatic breathing. Breathe into the side ribs. This is called costal breathing. Yogic breathing is often described as a combination of these two types of breathing. You want your breath to be long and slow. But you don’t want to fill the lungs so much that the collar bones lift and the upper chest lifts up towards the neck. This is called clavicular breathing. It is not recommended during your yoga practice. It stimulates the nervous system and is usually only used when the body is starving for oxygen. Breathe in and out through the nose. Let the breath lead you into the movement in your practice. Let the body follow the breath. Krishnamacharya says, “Let the breath be the Guru and the body be the disciple.” Ujjayi pranayama is very balancing. It can be performed in any asana. The Ujjayi pranayama is used to control the breath and slow it down. We can’t control the breath at the nostrils without using our fingers. But we can control the breath by constructing the throat muscles, as if we are sipping the breath through a tiny straw.
You have to have context in order to make sense of things. It’s really important that we understand how Classical Yoga Philosophy compares to the other philosophies which competed with yoga, as a way to understand the world and our place in it, around 2000 yrs ago. These philosophies influenced each other and influence traditional yoga practices. Modern yoga classes are using these traditional yoga practices. It’s important to understand why. What is the goal of these practices? And, once reaching the goal, what is the experience once we are there? If you want to learn more about yoga philosophy, please join me for one of my Shiva Yoga Teacher Training programs next year. We have a 200hr program in Cabo San Lucas next year July 15-August 16 and we have a 300hr program, spread over 3 modules, in the fall, in Port Orange, Florida! Check out the upcoming trainings page! Now, is the time for yoga!
When you practice teaching others, you learn so much about what you know and what you don’t know. Our students, and teaching itself, is such a good mirror for us. Just like in your own practice, the yoga mirror shows you the things you need to look at, and the areas that are disconnected. Are you being effective when you are teaching, or not? Are you communicating with your students? Do they understand the things you are sharing? The real measure of a good teacher is not what you can do on your mat yourself, but how effective are you at connecting with your students, helping them to grow and transform. Show me pictures of your students. I want to see them. I want to see what they have learned. I want to meet them. Are they closer to balance? Are they more Sattvic? Do they have a deeper relationship with themselves, and deeper relationships with other people and the world around them?
I met with my student, Andrew Oliver, last week in the Southbay. Andrew traveled to Cabo for our Shiva Yoga 200hr Program in August. I had lunch with him and his partner, Ei Ei — they own the yoga studio, ‘Yoga Remedy’s’ together. Andrew did an incredible job in the training program in Cabo and I was excited to hear that he’s now teaching 2 classes a week at Yoga Remedy’s. He told me that several people in his life came up to him when he returned from Cabo and asked him what he had started doing recently because they noticed this really positive shift in him, and one friend even said it was like he was a whole different person. This yoga technology will change your life. There is no more important relationship you will have than the relationship with yourself. When you change this relationship, it changes your relationship to everything. Proud of you, Andrew!
Taking a moment to honor my student, and recent graduate of my Shiva Yoga 200hr Teacher Training program, Arisa Takasaki. Arisa is the first person to finish the post training required assignments, after completing training in August in Cabo San Lucas. She just recently joined Yoga Alliance as a registered yoga teacher at the 200hr Level. Congratulations, Arisa!
When you practice teaching others, you learn so much about what you know and what you don’t know. Our students, and teaching itself, is such a good mirror for us. Just like in your own practice, the yoga mirror shows you the things you need to look at, and the areas that are disconnected. Are you being effective when you are teaching, or not?
The last two days I have been following along with the public hearings going on in Washington. What an intense 24hrs!
I was so moved by the testimony of Dr. Ford. How hard it must have been for her to come forward and to tell her story in public like that. I couldn't take my eyes off of the live stream that I was watching. I thought she was very credible and I came away from watching her testimony with one thought - 'I believe her.'
We really went into the fire in this workshop. And a lot of stuff bubbles to the surface when you are in that fire. Yoga is the practice of slowly dissolving the ego. And it’s a painful process. It’s not easy and it’s not about rainbows and unicorns and sunshine. It requires a lot of courage and it’s intense. But it is so worth it! Remember — it gets messy before it gets clean. We’ve gotta do the work and go through the discomfort to get to the other side. There’s no spiritual by-pass. Get on your mat! Dig in. And stand your ground. You can do this!
