Category: Yoga

Thank you for covering for me – I love yogini peers who so willingly subbed during my 3 weeks in Japan … So indebted … Arigato!
(This is a photo from the labyrinth circle on which we practice on at Niroga Institute. Institute sounds rather institutional but it’s actually a very low key church/auditorium. It’s nothing fancy and that’s why I love the vibe there for we create it. I love the yogis I share this journey with. Teachers are all excellent and the anchoring founder, B.K.’s presence is felt by all. So blessed to be part of this!)

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Almost back to normal – full-ish schedule teaching four public classes coming up this week. It’s enough as I balance the “other” parts of my life. I don’t want to teach from a place of chaos and discord. I want the harmony – the rhythm of vibrancy steeped in balance. As for privates, they are … private. Shhhh:) Why privates? Some people have personal trainer – same idea – a yoga instruction customized for your specific body type, constitutions and thereby, differentiated needs. It’s individualized and customized to reflect one’s specific goals and desires and so it’s truly… therapeutic. That’s my current training. Again, I wish I had a yoga therapist to myself when I needed one ! Supportive caring soul who acts as a Sherpa on the healing journey trekking uphill to recovery or full vibrancy – from darkness to light.

Had underestimated the energy and time commitments required for the 500/800 hours certifications. One month of absence has really costed me – so paying the price now with intense focus. Homework & assignments have piled up and I still have so much to makeup in terms of assisting hours in a yoga therapy setting as I find my mentors in special areas of expertise. Then there’s the “other” “real” life outside of yoga – wouldn’t it be a dream if all my worlds, real and imagined all just merged into supporting my passion…

Then next week, I will join a team of very dedicated yogis to assist our teacher, Judith Lasator, PhD/PT, at her week-long teacher training titled “Level 2/Therapeutic Application of Restorative Yoga” with a guest instructor/scholar, Roger Cole, PhD. I myself took this TT few years ago with maybe 60-70 other cohorts. So honored to join on the teaching side this time, as an assistant to a great teacher I admire and respect so much. The opportunity will serve as a review on the material covered and ingested few years ago. Very much looking forward to be with the like-minded, dedicated to the practice of yoga. This particular kind of yoga sometimes overlooked by the mainstream … so healing. So luscious and … yummy:)

* Pure Yin vs. Vin/Yin? – Vin/Yin just means Vinyasa followed by Yin style of yoga practice. It’s sometimes called “Yin/Yang Yoga” or Yoga Fusion. Then one might ask – What is Yin Yoga? Here’s a post on that from a while back. While I enjoy the dynamic flow class, the yang style, I really benefit from the serine stillness found between the breath in yin sessions. As Judith would say about that kind of practice – it’s a “refuge”. Yes? We have to prove ourselves so much to be worthy of this life, sometimes, all we need is a refuge. A refuge where we can integrate the body and mind to find the inner light that leads us to spiritual awakening. I love this beautiful practice so underestimated.

Just got back from Tokyo this weekend – wiped out – upon landing I hear the big local news is that a certain Silicon Valley executive who used to live very nearby died of a heart attack while surfing last week. He was only 48.
It’s sobering. I think I have heard relatively “young” people die from over-worked pump in the last few years. It’s a tragedy when they leave behind a family, especially growing children.

So I take to HEART all what I learned from the Cardiovascular module in Yoga Therapy. Exciting and exhilarating – makes you feel ALIVE ! but …certain thrills, as in steady build up in interval training, we need to work up to perhaps.
We have to not only focus on the FAST BEATING UP-TICK, the INTENSITY in the variable interval training but the lull, the quiet, the relaxed state too.
Some people are all about go go go and they don’t know how to sit still or relax. In fact, “relax” has become a bad word. Yet, that dip, the calm is needed too.
When the body and mind is placed in tranquil setting,
Your breath lengthens and so does your life …
Some people do not feel like they are LIVING unless they are DOING something – anything.
The heart, the pump needs the variability …the thrills and excitements are fine but it also needs to slow down and
feel the flow. The flow synchronized to the natural fluctuations in the energy fields around us.

AND while there are exceptions, we can’t treat our body the same way at age 18, age 28, age 38, age 48, age 58, 68, 78, 88, 98, 108 (maybe?)and so on. We do change.
We do age.
Some gracefully.
Some not.

Dr. Hinohara is 104 … Here’s his advice.
My mother was under his care when she was a little girl… and he sang and danced into my late-aunt’s room at St. Luke Hospital last year.
Imagine, this old gentleman sauntered into my aunt’s hospice room – she was in the last stages of cancer care. My aunt and cousin were needless to say very polite to the 100+ doctor.
I wonder if he remembers any of this … and does it matter.
Interesting to note his son is a cardiologist in Redwood City, California.
Hope to not ever have to knock on his door for help but also feeling comforted to know there are so many great doctors here.
If only we listened to our body.
Myself included,
so yoga helps with that.
The practice helps with sharpening our dulled senses. I do realize for some dealing with pain, that’s what we want – dulled senses. To be numb.
But what if there was no pain?
What if?
Yoga helps with pain management as well.

I would not claim yoga as cure-all BUT the practice helps when modified to fit the needs of that particular student.
Flexibility of the body is not required, just the mind’s.