A Letter To Me

The 6:05 Standing Split

My dear,

Not quite the perfect "6 O'Clock", and looking more like a 6:05 on most days,
this IS your Standing Split. Remember the first time you stepped onto your yoga mat? You could barely reach past your shins, let alone grab your ankles with both hands and KISS your shin. When you signed up for teacher training, there was nothing in the training manual about being 'perfect', visually nor spiritually.

With the explosion of yoga on social media, it's pretty easy to be sucked into the trap of wanting to 'look' perfect. Remember why you practice in the first place. Do you practice to express, or to impress?

Yoga is not a be-all-end-all practice to gain mastery in something. Some days you make progress, and some days you regress - learn to be okay with it. Embrace the flux and uncertainties, ride the highs, laugh at the lows, and let the authenticity of the practice reveal itself.

The daily practice of yoga creates tapas (heat). This deep, internal heat that burns away the "could have's" and the "should have been's" will eventually make space for a deeper and more personal exploration. Learn to trust the journey, and remain open to what might be.

After all, darling, you were born to be real, not to be perfect.

xoxo

Life's a Vinyasa

You say Ashtanga, she calls it Flow, and he swears by Vinyasa.

Same poses, but with huge dramatic differences, in what I'd like to call "choreyogaphy".

Vinyasa Yoga is often termed as a "flowing sequence of asanas that connect breath with movement".  I love Vinyasa. I love the very fact that I can tap into classical Hatha yogasanas and "choreyogaph" them to a seamless flowing practice where the mind, breath and body unite in a meditative state while in motion.  In lieu of the music of my breath, I too sometimes love to Vinyasa to tunes from my playlist where I get swept up by the flow of mantras as I settle into a pose, be it for a breath or five, before another takes its place. I love the 'aaah' moment where the practitioners in my class are led from prep poses to a peak pose, before dissolving the practice into restorative mode.

Vinyasa reminds me that life imitates art (the art in this case, being Yoga). Yoga teaches us to practise non-attachment (vairaghya) because nothing in life is ever permanent. Just like a Vinyasa practice, we flow through life, ride the peak poses, take the occasional tumble (like from a Handstand straight into a Savasana splat!), as one life experience dissolves and a new one takes its place. But as each unfolding moment presents itself, that too shall pass. 

Vinyasa - even bunnies do it
(image from mindbodygreen)

Finding the balance between joy and curiosity is often the base ingredient for my Vinyasa "choreyogaphy", sometimes even without the initial, rigid dogma of alignment. My Vinyasa practice is when I take fun seriously. My body and mind become my intimate canvas for opportunities, mistakes and growth. To me, healthy alignment is in the body's natural state, and with a full presence in one's practice, the alignment will eventually come (those who practise Ashtanga Vinyasa will attest to that).  

My body, my canvas

We exist in a constant state of adjustment, in order to get the alignment of our lives right. We adhere by schedules, deadlines, society and parental expectations. But have we ever thought of loosening the reins a little, and revisit the state of childlike wonder, to allow every turn to reveal a constant discovery, and every experiment to unearth new beginnings? Would we let ourselves sink into permanent rituals that (may) rob us of being joyful? 

Much has been said about 'enjoying the journey' but do you Vinyasa on the mat, as well as in life?

How the Yoga Sutras Unleashed my Inner Warrior

Life is funny (though, not always the funny of the ha-ha kind).


As March comes to (almost) a close, I spend a moment to ponder on how 2012 has been so far. 


Not one to believe in predictions (Chinese Astrology predicts that the Year of the Black Water Dragon will not be favourable to many), I cannot help but reflect on the turbulence that had been inflicted upon me these past few months... in health, relationships, trust and yoga. I noticed that as I begin to experience shifts in my consciousness and manifest a longing to live a life with more meaning, I inevitably created turbulence within myself, my yoga practice and my life. It became exceptionally hard to abide to the Yamas and Niyamas, when everyone and everything seemed to be pushing my buttons (including the cat!). 


Overbooking myself into 3 months of non-stop 7-days-a-week of teaching plus the intense stoking of the Rajasic fire, resulted in me losing my voice and coughing incessantly in February and March. I felt depleted, energy wise.


I began to retreat into my introverted doppelganger self, as people with selfish, devious intentions loomed before me, colouring my thoughts with doubts on why such people practise (and teach yoga) in the first place. Is the world so swept up with this new hot phenomenon of "doing yoga" that people have forgotten what it's like to "practise yoga"?


Does the "turbulence of awakening" need to be a struggle? Can't we just sit tight, with seat belts, helmets, elbow and knee pads on, and face each lesson and road bump as an opportunity to uncover the clue that will lead us to the next stage of life's journey? Can we write off the nasties in our life, and move on to life inspirations instead?


Carrying this storm cloud over my head, I popped back into the Tuesday night Yoga Sutra class. After reading verses from Patanjali's Chapter 1* (Samadhi Pada), the clouds slowly dispersed, as I found my "inner rainbow" that would turn all the current turbulent confusion into inspiring clarity. The lightness that I experienced in my drive home that night was astounding as I felt a huge burden lift from my shoulders. I was finally ready to cast aside the nasties and move past the uncertainties.


When we practise connecting our body, mind and spirit toward the quest of developing courage to let go of fear and fight adversity, we will somehow realize that we (actually) have the knowledge and power to unleash our inner warriors, and accomplish anything that our minds and hearts say we can do, without sacrificing tenderness. We have that ability to find stillness amongst the chaos, in order to live a purposeful and abundant life.
It's just that sometimes, we need a wake-up call and a push in the right direction.


Surround yourself with beacons of light and you will be illuminated.
Thank you for being my beacon.
Hari Om, Tat Sat.

*Vritti Sarupyam Itaratra (1.4) is translated to "At other times, when one is not in self-realization, the Seer appears to take on the form of the modifications of the mind field, taking on the identity of those thought patterns".