Categories
Beautiful People Yoga

Richard Rosen Yoga

sm_IMG_1517
Shoulder stand can pose a risk so feel and measure how much of a padding you need … 2, 3, 4 even 5 blankets… use whatever your body needs.
Just a neck – it’s actually a very delicate and vital part of our spine – so if needed customize:)

sm_IMG_1627 Richard Rosen, the master. To learn from someone so knowledgeable is an honor. What draws me to him is his unique depth of knowledge he shares with modesty and light-heartedness… still you have “AH-Ha”moments with his very detailed explanations and insights. Shocked when he stated nonchalantly … that he has suffered from Parkinson’s Disease for last 15 years – so can’t do some stuff – he says and shrugs. Still teaching. Still doing yoga. Still practicing. So what if he cannot do some asanas anymore – he can certainly explain it to such fine logical detail and students are all so willing to be a model for the demos – There’s so much to learn from him as he carries with him a treasure trove – that is a wealth of knowledge he accumulated over decades of teaching. Basically, a walking yoga philosophy and Sanskrit scholar and yoga historian. Maybe because he’s from Berkeley, he reminds me of a Cal Professor. I wish I were able to take his class on a more regular basis …

Thought the following describes him well – some beauty is skin deep and fleeting with age; the kind of beauty I am in awe of is …the kind that transcends the superficial – it’s like an aura. A very quiet, unassuming … and modest presence that exudes fatherly warmth and intellect. It’s subtle…

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Categories
Beautiful People Beautiful Places Uncategorized Yoga

A small loss…

Glasses are clinking and so many selection at Y’s…but
sm_IMG_6066
I am sticking to water …
sm_IMG_5953Kathleen Holm of Yoga Flow SF introducing Wah!

sm_IMG_5956“Wah’s music allows us to get to that place, we, through our demanding physical practice, with hard work try to get to – she gets us there without that hard work.” – K.H.

sm_IMG_5959Yes, it’s just sublime:) Tranquility – Peace – harmony – it’s all there.

sm_IMG_5966There’s nothing like a LIVE experience…”ichigo-ichie” time, a treat to conclude a stressful week.

************************* what’s a “small” loss *****************************
Having preached about how we need to have a full range of feelings, the whole spectrum, I must say I hate feeling badly. I have been feeling awful all week to be honest; but been busy so distracted myself from feeling truly awful… We have to be brave to allow ourselves to feel lousy. So many wonderful things are happening in my life but I actually have been feeling badly because… I lost my i-pod. Doesn’t that seem very silly? So shallow even ? It’s just a material object…it’s just a little “thing” – keep telling myself that – It’s just an i-pod. Hard to imagine that I actually think about it at night re-tracing my steps to figure out how I could have lost it…no clue.

Why let something so little ruin your day despite the distractions and make you sit up at night wondering and wondering ? It’s been almost a week of looking and looking to no avail. Well… if you think that each song in there was maybe $1-$2 from i-tunes… I have lost couple of hundred dollars of music in my playlist plus the hardware itself… To think that some unknown person may have my i-pod and a chunk of my musical library is a bit… disconcerting to me because in a way, it’s a personal belonging. To me, that i-pod was my personal library that I can draw from to calibrate my own mood… so… I feel a great loss. Now that I reminisce about it, it had dvd’s & my daily flow yoga practice as well… Sayonara, Baron Baptise flow sequence … big heavy sigh of loss.

Embarrassed to admit I actually panicked realizing that I don’t have my playlist for my Thursday morning class but… luckily I have my i-phone with my own mishmash of music… which ended up being used. Can you imagine, I am grieving so much over this little nothing of a thing, in the scheme of things. So if I am so sad over this, what it’s like for me when it’s something even more valuable? More tangible, more costly… It’s not pleasant.

This loss has brought about a re-visit in my thinking about the playlist and the place of music in yoga classes in general. Musical taste is personal. I had started as a sub for a community center class few years ago and when I walked in, I was determined to change the Hatha class (thought boring back then) into a Flow class (hypnotic fun !) so I had rather upbeat music in my track… uhhm, well, apparently the teacher who I was subbing for used nature sounds and very relaxing atmospheric music and can you imagine? I walk in and play tunes I selfishly think is “cool” – soooo not so cool as this couple approaches me after class and the wife said – ah, we worked all day and come to yoga really tired in hopes of de-stressing and relaxing for the evening before winding down and turning in so maybe …a bit? (change the music is the message). I was like … oh… I’m so sorry. I did not know – I thought you’d enjoy the get-happy selection and you wanted to be “energized” from a tiring work day. Wrong.

On the other hand, I was subbing for a vinyasa class at a sports gym whereby I brought in everything I loved at Wanderlust, latest in yoga music and … while some students loved it; others who were used to the regular teacher’s electronic music found it to be way too upbeat – looking back, I admit perhaps 2-3 songs were not really suitable. I made a mistake – I was merely playing music I WANTED to listen to.

SO… a playlist for different styles of yoga class requires some careful considerations. I also once got a complaint that the student wanted silence – absolutely no music- which is really the way taught by the gurus or in a classical setting – as I have been to many stern, strict, quite serious classes – of course, there is no music. I could even say that in a serious yoga class, there’s no music. Thus, it’s a totally valid request. Silence is golden, no? Well, to some, silence is excruciatingly uncomfortable and for regular yoga classes (there’s no music in Bikram hot yoga studios…), students are there to bring yoga into their everyday life, not to check into an ashram for a silent retreat. And so …at that point, a statement by one of my favorite teachers came to bear…which is, “You can’t please everyone.” You cannot please everyone and you can get very very drained if you try (which is what I used to do). Hate to say this but “it is what it is.” I am sorry. While it really depends, I happen to think beautiful sounds are integral part of that joy and liberation you feel in some yoga practices. If it’s just a BGM, I don’t need to play it.

I sometimes think I am creating more work as no music class will save me so much time and effort – as I no longer have to think about its affects and could just concentrate on the sequence or the cues or my readings or assists or … so many other things I could be doing to focus – I am perfectly fine with no music and serving as a guide without any music but it’s more about sharing I think. Sort of like opening the window into your taste or your world… As long as the music is not a distraction, I think the vibration of sounds mesh well with our practice. If not, I would turn it off. But really… I love sounds; I love the vibrations of human voice …it reverberates and harmonizes the nervous system.

Anyway, since I don’t have my i-pod, all this talk may be a moot point as there’s no choice to have or have not music anyway. I do, however, feel for my students if they have to bear through my chanting or singing (joking … pray I will find my i-pod by the next time…). Losing something, losing anything that’s dear to you is always so so SO difficult. Any loss makes you feel awful and very difficult to just shrug and move on. If I am having a tough time just getting over losing a mere little i-phone, imagine how hard it would be dealing with a loss of greater nature such as …. fill in the blank. It can be debilitating, devastating. So … practice of yoga helps in making you more resilient emotionally without turning you into a hard unfeeling cookie…

At Y’s Birthday Party, a comment is made – I would do yoga if there was a class called “yoga for inflexible guys”…everybody laughs – Really? Did you know it’s better to be inflexible than flexible? Why? Being inflexible, you are less likely to hurt yourself by over-stretching. Also, as your senses are on high-alert, you have the ability to “feel” so much more. The inflexible ones are more aware with the tiniest slightest millimeter of a movement…You possess the precious gift of heightened awareness – more sensitive than someone really flexible – you can be like a gumby doll doing a pretzel pose but … you may not feel much of a sensation… and that’s not so great in yoga. Is it?

Besides, eventually you will get there:) A little more Flexible AND Supple … with bounce in your steps:)
gumby

Categories
Yoga

Why Nandi ?

Because…
shivanandi
Just in case you are curious, here’s an abbreviated excerpt from Yoga Magazine, defining Shiva and Shakti:) The masculine/feminine duality in all – this is very very abbreviated:

Shiva is the father, the male force, said to ride a bull called Nandi and contains within the seeds of all creation. Shiva is the king of all yogis for he represents the supreme experience. Shiva has many aspects. Sometimes he is called ‘Rudra’, the destroyer – he who destroys… in order to make space where creation can take place. The absolute supreme auspicious consciousness, that is Shiva:)

Shakti is the mother and the female counter-force. She is known as ‘prana’ – life force, nourishment and growth of matter in all forms of life. She is ‘kundalini’ – the power that lies dormant in everything and which can be unleashed through yogic practices. She is called ‘Kali’, the dissolver of the world, who withdraws everything into her womb at the end of the allotted life-span. She is the epitome of the loving and faithful consort of Shiva. She is the primordial power- ‘Adya’, the universal mother, and represents knowledge for she is the means of removing bondage and achieving liberation or enlightenment. Shakti is the “primordial cosmic power” = energy …

Mythical story of Shiva & Shakti explains the energy and our existence, the universe, so reflective of the wisdom and imagination spanning some 5000+ years… whether one believes the Shiva & Shakti dance or not, it’s not a literal belief or religion (not for me) so much but more of a …romantic lore and a legend. I am sure human bodies have been dissected from time immemorial, and there is more scientific ways of looking at the world but… doesn’t these poetic and mystical interpretation make matters more interesting? When you think of everything in terms of “energy” and “consciousness”, things fall into place …and it’s because… it is.