my yoga journey
So a modern yoga great has just passed, a renowned teacher, said to be one of the first women to have studied with Pattabhi Jois. The corners of social media I inhabit are full of comment, some of it as banal as could be, some of it genuine and poignant, so much so that it... Continue Reading →
I got out of town this bank holiday weekend for a workshop plus kirtan. I've kept my yoga experiences pretty close to home for some time now, since my last visit to a new teacher was a bit more than I bargained for. Long story short: it's made me reluctant to leave the safety bubble... Continue Reading →
I bought a new pair of running shoes recently, the full works of gait analysis, little videos of my running action and a pressure analysis of how my feet bear weight standing. It was really interesting. The after effects of a broken foot are still evident, but I was stupidly smug after years of yoga... Continue Reading →
“Go to the limits of your longing... Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final” (Rilke) Practice at the moment is an experience of longing. I feel a deep yearning to be more fully with myself, to let go of the past, to feel the reality of the... Continue Reading →
I'm learning the optative in Sanskrit. My textbook tells me "the optative is a verb form that indicates possibility. It can be translated as 'should', 'would', 'could', 'ought' or 'may'. I found sentence 3 in the first exercise ironically amusing: "The teacher ought to be content". After all, the last time I had met with... Continue Reading →
Facebook just alerted me to the fact that it's been two years now since I obtained my yoga teaching certificate. So I've been teaching that long! A 'time flies' moment if ever there was. How can I have learnt so much AND so little in this time? I remember one of the things that vexed... Continue Reading →
"Inhale hands to prayer. Make it real" My teacher knows I'm nervous, gives me a breath to settle myself here before I 'show him' my Surya Namaskar A. I know it's not, but it feels like a test. He's standing just on the edge of my field of vision, a safe distance away, an unnerving... Continue Reading →
I once heard someone say you should never take up yoga if you like a good personal drama, if you're attached to making your life more exciting than it perhaps needs to be, if you actually enjoy getting a bit high on the everyday stresses. I think you'll know what I mean. I can fall... Continue Reading →
“So pretty” is not a phrase I hear often when I’m in class. My teacher is very sparse with anything that might sound like a compliment. He’s big on no judgment, no expectation: everything is simply along a spectrum of experience, where we practise non-attachment to any particular outcome. It’s strong yoga medicine: ultimately good... Continue Reading →
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This way freedom
