Categories
Uncategorized

Spring Cleaning “Kondoing”

For all hoarders … it’s a festival time!
I need Marie – “crazy tidying fanatic” – home to give me a lesson:)
Better yet, wish she just move in and rid of things and organize while
I take care of her baby<3 Really wonder how this baby will grow up, having a self- proclaimed "tidying freak" as a mother. Thank you Judith for a great book for our reading list. "Life changing Magic of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo. Here's her recent talk given at Google from UTUBE - searched on ... google:) Click Here:)
or
Here’s Wall Street Journal article that summarizes well even though you have to sit through an ad.

“. . . her voice . . . is by turns stern and enchanted,
like a fairy godmother for socks.”

— The Wall Street Journal

“[It is] enough to salute Kondo for her recognition of something quietly profound: that mess is often about unhappiness,
and that the right kind of tidying can be a kind of psychotherapy for the home as well as for the people in it . . .
Its strength is its simplicity.”

— The London Times

Categories
Yoga

Yoga chitta vritti nirodhah

Day 4 of 4 Invitational with Judith Lasater.
The mantra “Yoga Chitta Vritti Nirodhah”. (Sutra 1.2)
recited … during the theme of “Rest & Stillness”.
***
Were we all just in restorative all day? Noooo, mornings in active poses; afternoons in restorative and pranayama.

**** during the active practice with various seemingly detailed adjustments, she shares what she really wanted the students to come away with – it wasn’t about the femur bones and the acetabulum, even though it seems like it to ad naseam (sorry)- such tiny details to the point where Blood Type B me is like – does it really matter? – Who in the right mind really cares to such detail? As if she read my mind, after all the tweeking of pelvis going this way and femur going that way and hamstrings this … She brings us back. It’s not really about the slight angle of the femur and the pelvic tilt – I mean, it is “BUT” it’s not really about that. It’s more about this lesson:

“Nothing is too small and affects the whole”,

as we watched another yogini-who-should remain-unnamed make a subtle movement of her pelvis this way and femur that way and then … wow, what a difference – the energy.
A completely different Triangle – “utthita trikona”
and then to extended side angle pose – “Utthita Parsvakonasana”.

Slight movement, so subtle … but it makes a great difference in the “energy” you can see.

So funny – JHL: “call me OCD (“obsessive compulsive disorder”), I want you to know that no action is too small… even a small action can make a ripple affect. None of you are too small – you all, each of us, matter. Every action has an affect to the whole energy.Your action matter, however small.”

Ahhhhh… she nailed that in.

See – now – that’s why I love her. It’s not just yoga and it is just yoga.
Coming from a long line of Samurai – Educators, I honor the fierce but kind and gentle commitment she has towards sharing her knowledge through this wonderful language.

Categories
Yoga

Sangha with Judith

IMG_0002_smallLearning from Judith with the like-minded … Feeling at peace with sounds of rain outside of the studio … pitter-patter …absorbing like sponge. In gratitude for this opportunity to study with teachers’ teacher. Apparently, this July marks her 45th year teaching yoga. Amazing. Hope her tenacity rubs off on me:) So honored to study with someone who studied with the legend … things have a way of passing on. Transmission of knowledge. I think the reason why I like Judith so much is because her teachings are infused with all her life experience, laced with wit and it’s more feminine …folding in the motherly teachings into the Iyengar – very male – teachings. It’s whipped up into a batter of overall softness and gentleness, at all times sharing the same “fierceness”.

Besides anyone who has gone to Japan to teach yoga in the early years – anyone who really tries the Zen of life, anyone who knows what eating UMEBOSHI does to you … earns my deepest respect:)

Answer: Brings you to the CENTER. Yes, it does. Through sourness … saltiness. Although lately, it’s been sweetened with … honey to make it more palatable to more tastes.