It has been snowing like mad around my part of the world, and our world’s a little different, visually, and rhythmically. Schools are closed. Offices are vacant as most people stay off the roads and work from home. Or, if they come out, it’s to play with the fluffy powder before it turns to slush and wash away.
As is often my coping mechanism, I make various jokes about Weather Gods, that maybe they’re protesting that awful bill in Congress right now, SOPA/PIPA, or that some Weather God is dreaming the snow level of Inception.
In one moment of curiosity, I went to look up Greek and Roman and Hindu Winter and Weather Gods, and discovered a fascinating link in words.
It turns out there *is* a Hindu God of snow, Himavat. In Sansrkit, himavant conveys “having much snow”, coming from the root word himá, for “frost, snow”. The Himalaya Mountains got their name from him for snow and alaya for abode or home.
In Latin, the word for winter is hiems, which is where we got hibernate from, “to pass the winter in a dormant or torpid state”. In French, winter is hiver.
Going back we have these words coming from the Proto-Indo-European ghei, for winter. And speaking of winter, the Proto Indo European root word of winter is rumored to be *ueid, or *ued, and if you say that out loud, you can see how that becomes wet, went, and then wint.
Around here in the Pacific Northwest, winter is living up to its name. It’s wet, cold, snowy, windy, icy and stormy. I’ve been on house arrest, snowed-in, and powered out. I admit, I have not enjoyed every moment of it, I wanted to get out, go do things and see people.
Intellectually, I know in some weird way, Mother Nature is telling me to slow down and chill out, literally, and that’s a good thing. Emotionally, I’ve been less mature in accepting this message. “I’m moving south to some sunny place,” I think, and I create alternative scenes in my mind where I could escape the present.
In Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson’s character—realizing that everyone has some kind of Golden Age Thinking, romanticizing the past and in denial of the moment—proclaimed, “That’s what the present is. It’s a little unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying.”
Satisfying or not, snow or not, now is all there is. So I make a pact with myself, when I see snow and wish that I didn’t, I’d take out the “s”, and now it’s just… now. Sometimes I succeed. Most of the time I fail. And I make another go at it again.
Another trick I use is to remember a Thich Nhat Hanh quote:
“The present moment is where life can be found, and if you don’t arrive there, you miss your appointment with life.”
When something is on my calendar, I make every effort to show up. Why couldn’t I do the same with the present moment? When a bus, train, or plane departs at a certain time, I make sure I catch it. Why couldn’t I arrive on time to catch the moving vehicle of Now? Why wouldn’t I?
Not to be cheesy, (or, ok, to be cheesy), realizing this stops me right on my track. The track of reminiscing and fantasizing, and wishing that something completely out of my control wasn’t so, like precipitation from the sky, like ice on the road, like the electricity that I cannot summon with my sheer will.
Mother Nature, here’s to you for showing who’s the boss. Here’s to you, every winter god and goddesses in every culture and geography. Thank you for yet another reminder that for every Allegro movement, there’s an Adagio. Merci a toi, Woody Allen, for showing the silliness of our nostalgic thinking in a moveable feast of a movie.
The ice outside is melting, and I’ll soon forget my lessons. But surely, after spring, summer, and autumn, winter will come around again.
I’m teaching an Introduction to Yoga series at Taj Yoga on Tuesday nights starting this coming week. Here are all the deets… eh… details.
Elevator pitch
This five-week introduction series will cover the fundamentals of yoga including alignment, breathing, and relaxation techniques.
When
Date: Tuesdays January 10-February 7, 2012
Time: 7:30 p.m. to 8:45 p.m.
Where
Location: 9250 14th Ave NW,
Seattle, WA 98117. [Google Maps link]
Studio: Taj Yoga Room 1
How much
Cost: $70 for all 5 classes. $130 for two if you sign up together.
Is this class for me?
I’ve designed the syllabus primarily for someone brand new to yoga, or has dabbled in a class or two at a local gym, where the pace is fast and there are a lot of students.
I will focus on techniques–the whys and hows–of the types of yoga poses such as Standing Poses, Back Bends, Forward Bends, Twist, Seated, and Supine (everyone’s favorites).
Because yoga is multi-faceted, I will be introducing some foundational aspects of the 8 limbs of yoga, and so this class would also be appropriate for anyone interested in deepening their knowledge of the techniques and tenets of yoga.
The classes build on each other from week to week, and the goal is prepare you to take ongoing hatha yoga classes with lots of confidence.
What if I can’t make it to all five classes?
If you know you won’t be able to make it to a class, I will prorate the cost of the series and work out a plan to catch you up. Class notes will be sent to everyone about what we covered in class.
Who are you? Why should I take yoga from you?
I’m Nikki. I started yoga via asana at 15, developed a Vipassana (Insight) meditation practice when I was 25, and received my 500-hour certificate to teach yoga in in May of 2010.
My training and practice is heavily influenced by the Iyengar lineage. Techniques, Safety, and Alignment (TSA without the lines) are my main emphasis.
With the proliferation of yoga, there has come the rise of yoga injuries. My classes are small to ensure the techniques and modification are personal and appropriate for you.
And while yoga is more popular than ever, its message still appears to be elusive and esoteric. I have been lucky to catch a glimpse of yoga beyond the bendiness. My goal is to make what seems to be mystical practical to you.
Is this hot yoga?
No.
What other students have said
I just finished a 6 week alignment series with Nikki, and I can’t wait for the next opportunity to take a class with her.
Nikki keeps the class fun, while making sure everyone is working within their capabilities. I especially appreciate that she makes sure to be aware of what injuries or impediments everyone brings to the class in order to best suit the class to the individuals.
And as a bit of a geek myself, I love that Nikki spends the time to explain the whys of each posture, and even each adjustment, rather than just running students through a prescribed series with little or no thought involved.
The class is a great balance of physical postures, breath work, and inner work, leading to a terrifically revitalizing experience. – David Tolmie
I’m in! What do I do?
Hooray! Please RSVP by writing or calling me:
Email: nikki @ nikkiyoga dot com
Voice/text: 206 . 992 . 0139
Twitter: @yogageekgirl
How do I pay you?
You can pay me at the door on the first day of class. I take cash, check, and credit card via a Square reader. I’m not receiving payment through PayPal at this time.
How do I get there?
Taj Yoga is housed inside the old Crown Hill Elementary building, which opened in 1919 with six rooms. Today, it’s home to Seattle Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Arc Ballet School of Dance, Small Faces Child Development Center, and many great movement art programs.
The building is on 14 Ave NW and NW 95th St. There is ample parking. It’s also accessible by bus #75 on Holman Road NW, bus #15 on 15th Ave NW, and bus #48 on NW 85th St.
The class is 7:30 -8:45 p.m. The general guideline for doing yoga is to not eat about two hours prior to class. However, I’d much rather you have a steady blood sugar level than be so hungry in class you can’t wait for it to end. So, if it’s close to class time and you haven’t eaten all day, please eat. Almonds, bananas, soups, a small peanut butter sandwich are typically good options.
We do also have the distinction of being within walking distance from Holman Road Dick’s, one of six Seattle famous Dick’s Drive-In, which makes for a fine choice after yoga, but probably not before.
If you have any additional questions, please let me know, and I hope to see you soon.
Every year I hold a Sit Off. The first Sit-Off was a response to the ferocious debate on the merit of yoga competition. Should we, or should we not? Is it yogic? Is this all that yoga has been reduced to? Just aerobics, just asana? It went on and on.
After a while, I had enough of it. So I said, in my best Cartman impression, “Screw you guys, I’m going to have a meditation competition, no, even better, a Sit-Off, like a Zoolander Walk Off.”
I also made up some ridiculous rules, like you must be able to sit still while PETA releases hoards of bees into the room and Cotton Eyed Joe is playing on repeat on the background. It sounds horrific, but none of that action or irritation compares to the guilt, shame, anger, anxiety, fantasy, excitement, and memories that my mind can conjure up.
It started out as a joke, but I found a nice side effect. When I set a period of time to devote to something, it focuses my actions and it reinvigorates and strengthens my practice. Also, knowing that many others, oh, who am I kidding, a few others, are doing this with me, can give me a sense of accountability when me don’t feel particularly self-disciplined, which is most of the time.
So, I’m hereby announcing the 3rd round of the Sit-Off.
Why now? If you remember, I already ran the 2nd annual Sit-Off in February. (You totally remember, right?) Well, it occurred on me the other day that from Monday October 3, 2011 to November 11, 2011 are exactly 40 days. And I, predictably like most geeks, have a thing for binary dates.
(Proof: my friend Khoi, a computer engineer, told me he decided long ago he’d get married on 10/10/10, and it didn’t matter with whom.)
The number 40 has always been interesting to me because one year, I wanted to know why Lent is 40 days, so I spent several hours reading Wikipedia on it. Here are some things that Wikipedia sayeth on the subject, some more or less well-known, depending on who you are and what part of the world you live in:
Moses spent three consecutive periods of “forty days and forty nights” on Mount Sinai
Jesus fasted “Forty days and forty nights” in the Judean desert, which is like…
The 40 days of fast that Buddha made to the desert before to exert his apostolate.
Muhammad was praying and fasting in the cave for 40 days. which is like…
The 40 days that the Buddha supposedly sat under the bodhi tree before his enlightenment. (Some accounts say 49, not convenient for my purposes here at all.)
It is believed that one who assists a blind man for forty steps becomes worthy of entering heaven.
Prophet Yunus was in a whales mouth for 40 days (he was having a whale of a time!)
Human pregnancy lasts approximately 40 weeks from the time of the last menstrual cycle and childbirth (38 weeks from fertilization).
Symbolize the death with oneself and the spiritual rebirth.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
One More Thing
Along with the usual rule, which is that you can sit for any length of time, I’d like to give extra credit for those who’d like to Don’t Break the Chain à la Jerry Seinfeld with any activity that you’d like to start, or stop doing.
In addition to sitting every day, do this just one more thing that you’ve always wanted to do: read that book, write that novel (NanoWriMo is coming), run, work out, floss, etc. The only requirement is you must do it every day. Every. Single. Day. Even just for a minute.
Won’t Power
I read somewhere that if you don’t have will power, have won’t power. I don’t know exactly what that means, having not taken part in any Won’t Power Heart Opening Workshop or Won’t Power Blow Your Mind Tour.
The idea appeals to me in the way a koan does: it turns your head upside down a bit. Does it work? If “I will go to bed early” requires iron will power, and doesn’t always work (usually never), will “I won’t go to bed late” do anything for me?
I don’t know, what say you we find out? As always, let me know you’re in by using the hashtag #openpractice on Twitter, or tagging “openpractice” on your blogs and on Flickr.
Even more extra credit: Start on October 1st instead of October 3rd. 10/01/11 to 11/11/11 make 42 days. And 42, as you know, is The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, at least according to Douglas Adams.
Also, 42 in binary is 00101010, another reason why my friend Khoi wanted to get married on 10/10/10, come hell or high water. Told you us geeks are weird.
But never mind us. Just be where you are, and sit with me.
So I picked up a paper, it was more bad news
More hearts being broken or people being used
- You Were Meant for Me, Jewel
I’m writing about something that’s probably out of most people’s mind already: the London riot that happened earlier this month. I’m also writing about related events happening in Seattle in September and October for Street Yoga.
In our attention-deficit 24-hour-news world, where the lifetime of a tweet is but a fleeting hour, yesterday’s horrible news needs to be topped with even more horrible, more outrageous, more destructive news today. This morning I saw a funny tweet, and I paraphrase: “The media could hardly contain their disappointment as hurricane Irene has not turned out to be the calamity they had hoped it would be.”
For the most part, this is life as I know it in this early-21st century media, continuous shock and awe of all kinds of titillating and sensational reporting.
The London riot was no exception. It was big news for a few hours. There was finger pointing, there were promises of punishment, there were comedy materials for late night show hosts and Tweeters. (“Did London lose a hockey game or something?”)
Amidst the sound bites, one man wrote a thoughtful piece reflecting on the root causes and proposed a solution, one that could be considered radical in certain circles. This surprised most of us who may be more familiar with him as Mr. Katy Perry, or that crude comedian dude: Russell Brand.
In his heartfelt essay, Big Brother Isn’t Watching You, the most common impression Mr. Brand left seemed to be: “Damn, who knew the Get Him to the Greek dude can write like that!” For me, his essay hit closer to home as someone who’s been involved with Street Yoga and went through their Teacher Training.
At the training, I was exposed to exercises and concepts that clearly demonstrated to me the complex and intertwined social support system (or lack thereof) for the youths in our society: the ones struggling with homelessness, poverty, abuse, addiction, trauma and neurological & psychiatric issues.
These are the people Street Yoga strives to serve. A homeless child grows up to be a homeles adult, and the vicious cycle continues, as homeless adults create homeless children. How do we nip this problem at the buds?
Here’s Russell Brand on the death of Mark Duggan, a young man gunned down by police, spawning a peaceful protest and the ensuing infamous riots.
However “unacceptable” and “unjustifiable” it might be, it has happened so we better accept it and, whilst we can’t justify it, we should kick around a few neurons and work out why so many people feel utterly disconnected from the cities they live in.
Unless on the news tomorrow it’s revealed that there’s been a freaky “criminal creating” chemical leak in London and Manchester and Liverpool and Birmingham that’s causing young people to spontaneously and simultaneously violate their environments – in which case we can park the ol’ brainboxes, stop worrying and get on with the football season, but I suspect there hasn’t – we have, as human beings, got a few things to consider together.
I found those protests exciting, yes, because I was young and a bit of a twerp but also, I suppose, because there was a void in me. A lack of direction, a sense that I was not invested in the dominant culture, that government existed not to look after the interests of the people it was elected to represent but the big businesses that they were in bed with.
Why am I surprised that these young people behave destructively, “mindlessly”, motivated only by self-interest? How should we describe the actions of the city bankers who brought our economy to its knees in 2010? Altruistic? Mindful? Kind? But then again, they do wear suits, so they deserve to be bailed out, perhaps that’s why not one of them has been imprisoned. And they got away with a lot more than a few fucking pairs of trainers.
These young people have no sense of community because they haven’t been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron’s mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there’s no such thing.
If we don’t want our young people to tear apart our communities then don’t let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together.
As you have by now surely noticed, I don’t know enough about politics to ponder a solution and my hands are sticky with blood money from representing corporate interests through film, television and commercials, venerating, through my endorsements and celebrity, products and a lifestyle that contributes to the alienation of an increasingly dissatisfied underclass.
But I know, as we all intuitively know, the solution is all around us and it isn’t political, it is spiritual. Gandhi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
Now, I, like Russell Brand, don’t know enough about politics. Nor do I feel like I know enough about “being spiritual”. To me the word spiritual is quite a slippery slope and it frequently gets thrown around without context or consideration.
When I read that sentence, I stopped momentarily to ponder what Russell was probably thinking in his head when he wrote it. What could he possibly mean?
I don’t know, but here is what I know for sure. My yoga practice, and especially my sitting practice, has offered me benefits which I don’t think I’d be able to get in any other way. What kind of benefits? Flexibility and strength, surely, but I’m not just talking about yogasana only.
If one were simply doing yoga for the physical benefit, they could easily gain it going for a run, bike ride, or lifting weight. No, I’m talking benefits that involve behavioral changes. I’m talking coping mechanisms. I’m talking about a way of being and a way of existing in the world.
Yoga, first of all, gets me into my own body, it gets me to be comfortable in my own skin. This may be automatic and easy for some people, but for me, it’s a learned and acquired taste. It gets me to not only work out and burn a few calories, but it gets me to get to know myself, from a bodily, tangible perspective: here’s my head, here are my toes, here’s the sensation resulting from this movement.
So that’s on a bodily, physical level.
The sitting practice, the meditation practice, is the next level up. Sitting, of course, is not appropriate for everyone at all times. It is not a cure for many psychosis, it’s not a cure-all for all that ails us. It is not a just-add-water solution. It is not a pill.
It is a red pill, in a way, however, in the sense that, as the red pill wakes Neo up to the truth of the Matrix, meditation wakes me up to the real me. That I, too, have those characteristics which I publicly condemn and punish. I’m selfish, I’m spiteful, I’m frightened. I’m generous, I’m loving, I’m fearless.
Seeing everything all mixed up inside makes me realize that I, like others, have the potential to act one way or another, at all times. Sitting reminds me to have compassion for people with their addictions, their trauma, their neurosis, since I, too, have those to varying extent. I, too, see how difficult it is to change, even the most benign of bad habits.
I am not so different, not so separate, not so above from them after all.
What makes me choose not to destroy other people’s properties and set them on fire in most instances? Like Russell Brand, I have a support system. I’ve got a mother and a father who’ve worked tirelessly and unselfishly for my well-being, from my most basic needs to the highest one: Love.
I’ve been privileged to live in a society where I can go to school, get a degree, and have first world problems, like the fact that the internet connection is so slow today in my office building, and the air-conditioning is on too high.
What about the kids without anyone telling them they are alright, they are loved, and they can be musicians, architects, developers, doctors, or whomever their fancy wants to take flight? That they’ve got other options besides agression or submission?
I think most acts of violence can be traced back to a feeling of worthlessness, or feeling rejected, abandoned, unloved, and ultimate, something extra, disposable, replaceable. Who will tell these kids, as my teacher Judith Hanson Lasater told us in a training: “You are not extra. Stand on your mat like you matter”.
Luckily, self-examination and introspection is not only available to the privileged ones. You can have a private jet and a mansion full of designer clothes and cars, and may not ever reflect inward. Or, you can be in a foster home and get to know yourself, one breath at a time.
This is what Street Yoga aims to do. With dedicated social workers, educators, and yoga teachers, Street Yoga seeks to reach out to create a quiet revolution: to encourage people to know themselves rather than be manipulated by others.
“Each one of us struggles daily to maintain our sense of integrity and personal wisdom. Yoga creates a quiet place for people to experience their own bodies, minds, and feelings. They can evaluate what is useful and true.
They are encouraged to deeply listen to themselves. Their independence, creativity, and sincere questioning are encouraged. Yoga, as we present it, is not an ideology, not a cure-all, not another message that we expect people to buy into.
Yoga is a safe space to look for oneself. Yoga is a place to investigate and to make one’s own assessment and choices. It is an offering and a hope for greater independence, empowerment, and self-awareness.”
So, why am I telling you this?
This September, Lululemon Pacific Place will host free in-store yoga classes every Sunday morning to raise awareness for Street Yoga. I’ll be teaching on Sunday September 4, 2011 at 9:30am.
On Saturday October 1st, we’ll have a Fall into Gratitude benefit event: a dinner and dance party at Waid’s Haitian Restaurant at 1212 E Jefferson St. There’ll be a dance performance, an art show, and of course, dinner, all for only $40. It all starts at 6pm.
I hope you’ll come to the free yoga classes and the dinner, and if the spirit moves you, dance. I hope you’ll consider making a contribution to Street Yoga, or similar organizations like Yoga Behind Bars, YogaG, or YogaHOPE. You can encourage educators and your city school boards to look into programs like Mindful Schools.
Most of all, even if you do none of these things, I hope that you, and I, and all of us have the strength and tenacity to continue to learn to work with our bourgeois and non-bourgeois sufferings, and first world or second or third, or universal problems.
And if you don’t do any yoga or meditation or believe in sending your hard-earned money to any organization, I hope you reserve some room for hope in humanity even after watching the 5, 7, 9, and 11 o’clock morning and evening news.
That indeed there are groups of people taking on the crazy and scary work of working on themselves, and in the process mending whatever destruction the Dark Lord or Red Skull instigates. Isn’t that why we cheer for Harry Potter and Captain America?
Don’t take my words for it. Hear the words from the Street on what yoga means.
In my day job, I’m a User Experience Designer. It’s an umbrella term for all the activities necessary to find out about the users and design products that are most useful for them in their particular activities.
Every day, I see parallels in being a designer and teaching yoga.
Recently, I wrote a post in my other blog called: The Trouble with User Experience Design, where I talk about an experience I had in class one night while talking about svadhyaya. A student asked me if I’m talking about self-inquiry spiritually, and I professed to not being in the position to talk to her about her spiritual growth.
“In the context of this class, self-reflection is about knowing where your feet are and how you’re breathing”, I told her.
Talking about other people’s feelings and experience is danger zone for me. Some yoga teachers will go in what I consider “touchy-feely” territory, and I may have been to the border towns a few times in my teaching career. You know what I mean, it’s things like: ” feel grace pouring in” or “let the sense of calm wash over you”, and “feel so much light and love as if you’re going to explode in thousands of pieces of joyful stardust and become one with the divine spirit of the Universe.”
There’s nothing inherently crazy about these statements. They’re not even as over the top as they may seem here, written down in a blog. Sudden feelings of satori, for example, are entirely possible. What makes me weary of these statements in a yoga class is they may or may not reflect the actual experience of the students. They are imposed and suggested, something that’s well and good in the Marketing and Advertising department, but, as far I’m concerned, not the point of yoga.
In the User Experience Design field, the title presumes that we have so much control over other people’s experience that we can design it. It may be so, only to the extent that, in a way, everything is design(ed).
In yoga, I am aware that I am paid to provide some sort of experience as well. When I asked my students what the word “yoga” brings to their mind, the answers include: calm, flexible, destress, strong, and peace. That is a tall order for a yoga teacher to create in 75 minutes. Personally, it’d be presumptuous to think that I can single-handedly meet all these needs.
I remember very vividly one private session when I asked a student what he’s expecting, and why he has come to me. He looked at me straight in the eye and said, “You know, honestly, I want to learn to be a better person.”
I gulped. What do I know about being a good person? What do I know about telling other people to be a better person?
Luckily, in User Experience, I know a bit about techniques and principles of Design. In Yoga, I know a bit about where the hands and feet go in Trikonasana and Downward Dog; I know a bit about the kleśā and the kośa. My value is bringing what I’ve learned and personally experienced to create an space where my students can figure out their own relationship with yoga, and with themselves.
Judith Hanson Lasater once said, “We don’t teach the yoga, it’s the poses that teach the yoga.” I thought this was radical, but after reflecting on it, I realized it’s true. It’s in the poses where I learn to observe my own body and my own breathing, and by extension staying in the moment. That is the holy grail of this spiritual practice.
After two years of teaching, I still have moments where I feel the anxiety and pressure to “make students feel good”. In those times, I have to remind myself that I’m not providing a spa service. As the California Yoga Teachers Association Code of Professional Ethics states:
We believe that it is the responsibility of the yoga teacher to ensure a safe and protected environment in which a student can grow physically, mentally, and spiritually.
This is what I am fully committed to. Beyond that, the emotional and individual experience of yoga is not mine to dictate.
I’m starting an Intro to Yoga series at Taj Yoga, beginning this coming Wednesday, January 12, 2011. The series will run once a week for seven weeks, ending on Wednesday February 23, 6-7:15pm. The cost is $85 for the whole series, which comes to $12.14 per class.
What will we do? I’ll cover the fundamentals of yoga, including alignment, breathing, and relaxation techniques. I’ll build the classes to help you progress and prepare you to take ongoing yoga classes with confidence.
You can take the series if you’ve never ever taken a yoga class in your life before, or if you’ve taken one or two classes and would like to start on the right foot (more jokes of the same caliber to come, I promise). You can also take the series if you’ve been to yoga classes that flow from one pose to the next without stopping, and you’re looking to gain a more solid understanding and foundation.
We have mats and props for use at no extra charge, so you won’t need bring any. You are welcome to bring your own, of course.
Location
Taj Yoga
9250 14th Avenue Northwest, Seattle, WA
In the old Crown Hill Elementary School building
When you enter the building, take a right and walk down the hall, past the gym. Taj is the first room on your left.
Accessible by bus #75 on Holman Road NW, bus #15 on 15th Ave NW, and bus #48 on NW 85th St. There is also a ton of easy parking around. View Larger Map
“I love that Nikki spends the time to explain the whys of each posture, and even each adjustment, rather than just running students through a prescribed series with little or no thought involved” – David Tolmie
“She is a very technical teacher. Aways fine tuning your poses to make them just right for you. Never in a hurry and always willing to let you try it out on your own pace. Always asking how your body is doing and what it feels to you. She will push you to your limits, but never farther than your body will allow or is unsafe. Plus, she is overall a fun person to be around.” – Chad Adair
Taj Yoga in the Crown Hill neighborhood of Seattle
Taj Yoga now consists of Taj 1-the original Taj-and Taj 2, the younger sister in the room next door. On January 2nd, Studio Director Theresa Elliott held an inaugural class to “baptize” the new space, which she has transformed to fit for some serious yoga and movement work, exercise balls and foam rollers included. The second studio will allow Taj to have more teachers and hold more classes on the weekend, an option previously not possible with the Pacific Yoga Teacher training being held in Taj 1.
Shakti Vinyasa owner Lisa Black expanded further into the East Side with a third studio in Redmond in December, and it’s now open for business. This reporter is not a Baptiste practitioner, nor a Redmond resident, so that is all the scoop there is. If you have any, please share!
Santosha Yoga owner Beth Dial announced the closure of the studio after 10 years through an email in November. The email also vaguely mentioned that “a Santosha teacher and her business partner have signed a lease for the studio space to open a new studio in the same location.” And there was more than a hint of not cool, man, not cool: “It hurts to think that the new studio owners chose to go around me rather than work with me to maintain Santosha.”
Ouch.
In any case, Lila Yoga is the name of the new studio, and the website is beautiful (though you need to have Flash or Chrome). The teachers look vibrant and excited, and I hope the studio will stick around the Madison Valley area for another 10 years and more.
Here’s to our continuing of the birthing and deathing process and the whole dance of it all in 2011.
George Purvis was in town at Taj Yoga last weekend, and I hung out with him for most of it, except for skipping out one afternoon session to go to my friends Kristel and Mikhail’s wedding.
George is a long time Iyengar teacher and is my teacher Theresa Elliott’s mentor. Though he’s been coming to the Pacific Northwest regularly every year. I only got to meet him last year, and ever since then, I had made sure that I come to at least one of his workshops once a year.
How do I describe George? I can’t. He’s completely offbeat and laugh-out-loud funny, which is a cover for his crazy and precise instruction on asana techniques. If you have ever had a “bad” experience with an Iyengar teacher, or if you have a preconceived notion that Iyengar yoga is some sort of deranged beat down of your yoga ego, you are in for the surprise of your life. George is more down to earth than Australia.
Humor obviously makes people relax and makes them more open to listening to what yoga has to offer them. It promotes a certain level of open-mindedness and relaxation. I think of humor as sort of like shaking out the muscles of the brain. – George Purvis, Yoga Journal interview
As one of the senior Iyengar teachers in the United States, George has played his part in the upbringing of many prominent yoga teachers. “But, I’ve never heard of him,” you say. Well, it’s possible that he, from my understanding at least, seems to lay low and away from the lime light. It’s also possible that it’s partly due to his health. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 and has had surgery and extensive treatments since then.
Anyway, during the workshop, we got to hear stories about his two mentors, Ramanand Patel and Mary Dunn, and of course Mr. Iyengar. We got to work on our peroneus. Oh boy, did we get to work on our peroneus.
The one thing that’s most striking to me about George is his dedication to teaching. I can’t quite explain it to you in a way that reflects how I experienced it, but I was so moved by how he just wanted to… well, teach. He gave all of himself to making sure he answered our question, and, as he was running late to catch his flight home, he was still explaining things and adjusting people with one foot out the door.
Hey George, thanks. See ya and your cowboy boots next year.
George Purvis, courtesy of http://www.clearspringstudio.com/
I’ve got lots of posts to write. Too many, in fact, for the time I have, or think I have.
So, this post is a post to say hello, if you’re a regular, or… um… irregular?
I’m just barely touching the surface of this vast ocean called yoga, and I continue to learn more about it every day. But the most important thing I’ve learned, bar none, is to practice, practice, and practice some more. Not just “on” or “off” the mat, but anywhere and everywhere. Life is a great mat on which to practice.
A couple weeks ago, I took a workshop with Chase Bossart, whom I had never met until the workshop. Despite not knowing anything about him, I took the workshop because of one word in its title: meditation. (The full title is: Beyond Sequencing, The Art of Meditation.)
Chase was funny, witty, and most of all, knowledgeable. The man knows what he’s doing, and he knows what he’s talking about.
To start off nice and easy, Chase asked us, “What is meditation?” You know, a warm-up question, really. I think I may have given a smart-ass answer, something along the line of, “Meditation is me sitting on a cushion thinking about what I’m gonna do after I’m done sitting on a cushion.” Chase had a much better definition: “meditation is giving the mind its best form. Meditation is the crown jewel of yoga.”
He then gave a very convincing reason to meditate: if you see things as they are, you’re more likely to react appropriately. Meditation is where the mind facilitates perception as clearly as possible.
I’m sold, Chase, where do I sign up?
Well, I’m already signed up, not just for the workshop, but for a lifetime of meditation. The trick is, but how? And how is what we did the whole weekend, investigating sequences, concepts, and methods of meditation from a Classical and Viniyoga perspective.
Since then, I’ve incorporated what I learned in my own practice and teaching, and I’m glad I got the chance to meet Chase, and I’m sure I will see him again in the near future. He lives in the Bay Area, and travels to the Yoga Shala of Portland frequently to teach.
