So so much to take away from this workshop. She is a true yogini. She is a natural beauty who speaks with clarity and intelligence. She is a truely dedicated yogini with real life teachings to impart, very modest but with so much strength tempered with gentle sweetness about her. Who cares what “yoga wear” she wears. It doesn’t matter. Anything will look divine on her body of perfection as we all see divinity in her. She’s like this divine earth mother. Even though she’s the founder of LA’s YogaWorks, absolutely no air, no fake LA glitter about her – so authentic. Just true aura, a natural radiance of someone who teaches what she practices. It was funny she described herself as more a “Earth Mama” whereas another renowned yogi as being out there in space (lovingly). Her sense of humor is precious and more than anything, what she imparted was so valuable.
While she is teaching these advance poses that I get so frustrated with – so caught up in “can’t get it right”angst mode. I know it but was reminded by her:
1. Yoga is not about the pose – if it becomes about the pose then you are not doing yoga anymore.
2. You take it as far as you need. If you don’t need to, don’t go any further.
3. Let the fruit ripen. Do not pick what needs to ripen on the vine. Great analogy – “you’re making a smoothie and the darn papaya is not ripe. You wouldn’t take that green papaya and cut it open, would ya? The darn thing is not ripe – you can’t make that smoothie and if you do, it’s not going to taste any good and then you also ruined the possibility of a yummy papaya smoothie in the future. So let the fruit ripen.”
So going forth, my mantra might be “let the fruit ripen”!
To quote:
Practicing yoga is a privilege. With privilege comes duty. Duty to be kind to self and others and to approach Yoga with reverence.
We all walked out from her workshop with a shining heart and smile on our face.
Thank you for teaching Maty. You are gifted or shall we say, you are the gift.
I am filled with gratitude that I got to go to this workshop despite the fact that my “smoothie” is no where near ready to drink:)
Realized she’s going to be in Hiroo, Tokyo in May. Her workshop are Highly recommended for anyone on the yogic path. You will learn SO much !!! Teachers’ Teachers’ Teacher to be sure. A Guruji. A twinkle in her eyes tells you that all, whatever your “level”, are welcome but it’s going to be tough. Must be a pretty serious student of yoga – Probably more for instructors who really want to learn from one of the best *first generation” of West’s best yoga teachers.
* Judith Lasater mentioned how she and other teachers from her generation had the privilege to learn directly from revered teachers/gurus in the legendary likes of B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, and T.K. V. Desikachar and T. Krisnamacharya. What she and her generation of Western teachers learned directly from these great masters, they tried to pass it on in the West. So now her early students are teachers themselves, the second generation, and teaching the third generation – she calls her grandchildren. Guess as far as Yoga landing in US, we are seeing the passing of the torch from the first landing to second and onto third generation. What a hopeful development we are seeing in front of our eyes.
More we surround ourselves with high technology, buzzed with social media and hyper networks to be connected, we seem to get disconnected to ourselves. More information we have, more we seem to get lost and in search of a better GPS to navigate ourselves out of the confusion and the stress from the overload – We just want to curl up and go back to the simpler times – just want to revert back to rediscovering the wisdom of the yogis and mystics from the ancient times. Now why is that? Why is Yoga so popular? Because. Yoga Works!. Thank you for bringing that to the forefront Maty.