light on life

I just started (again) to read Mr. Iyengar's book Light on Life.
It's good! I highly recommend it, though I should admit I'm only on page 16.
But what a page it is ~
I especially like this sentence:

"Asana [yoga postures] bestows the firmness to live with equanimity in the vicissitudes of the world's hurly burly."

He's got passion and is very to the point, a lighthouse in the storm of hurly burly!

teacher please!

Does a person need to have a great teacher to become a great teacher?
I'm in the market, myself.
I'm calling out to the world, "looking for a great teacher!"

dance

I went to see the Alvin Ailey dance company perform last night.

It was amazing to watch the dancer's bodies defy the notion of what bodies are supposed to be able to do.

It also felt odd to be sitting still and watching such defiance, such movement. The audience and the dancers were experiencing the two opposite sides of an enormous spectrum.

I think its important to remember that we are the whole spectrum (that is what the yogic sages would say!) , and we happen to be where we are inside of it, i.e. sitting, leaping, spinning.

Not that I am able kick my leg up to my ear, right now, on this rainy Sunday afternoon. But it is in the realm of possibility, with a little practice...

the yoga of...

I often try to think in this way.
Like for example: What is the yoga of waking up early? It is a new day, and a new breath; you can surround yourself with quiet.
What is the yoga of animals? They are present in each moment, and don't know if they are pretty or silly looking.
The yoga of biking? Relaxing as the bumps come and go. There is concentration and grace in action.

Now with Thanksgiving in two days and with my baking skills warming up, I am wondering now: What is the yoga of Cheesecake!?

:)

Remember this~

Yoga does not = Perfection!

pulling silk

I try to teach my students how to use enough muscular effort to be in a pose, but not so much that they squeeze the possibility out from what it is that they are doing.

There needs to be some tension, but just enough to vibrate the energy within them.

I learned recently that in Tai Chi, there is a way of moving that is called pulling silk.

Besides the fact that I like to say "pulling silk", I think that imagining the idea of pulling silk can soften your yoga practice into something even more beautiful than it is already.

yoga health

I'm thinking about how health is not gained by beating yourself up.
Yoga is not the pursuit of strong muscles.

Yoga can be what roots you to the earth so that your tree isn't blown over quite so easily,
The health that comes is effortless, in the fruit of that tree.

Resistance

happens when you come up to something and then back away from it.

Within your person, resistance can happen when you come up to a sensation and your body/mind changes the subject. It happens in a snap.

Then what happens after the snap!?

where your spine begins

Your spine doesn't begin in the back of your head.
It begins the very center. *

Close your eyes and mentally map where your spine begins.
Does knowing it's location change how you hold your head?

I find this so fascinating!


*for those of you reading this on my website, see the image on my blog!

The key to happiness as quoted from the Buddha

"Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness."

Its cool. I'm cool. We are cool..., :)

Or as my friends and I used to chant in middle school,
"I wanna, I wanna, I wanna be a buddha!"
Though of course we really had no idea yet what it was we were aspiring to.

*