Well, heading back to Kansas City tomorrow morning for my second kundalini yoga teacher training weekend. I feel anxious about it, once I'm there I'll be fine, just having anxiety about it.
I've posted about my draw back to my former ashtanga practice and have been wondering about it. I'm reading a book called Guruji, full of interviews with many of K. Pattabhi Jois's more well known students and teachers of ashtanga, one of them stated you can't poor tons of energy through a thin copper wire, it won't hold it and will burn out, or break, so the ashtanga system he sees as a strengthening tool for the physical body to be able to handle the amounts of energy our bodies can have going through them, once the clearing out begins.
So, I've been doing kundalini daily for a couple years now, practicing for about ten years altogether, but with no alcohol, less meat, now no meat, more healthy things going in, so my channels have been cleared out, mostly, and the energy work from a kundalini practice is intensely pouring through my being. My body has recognized it needs to be stronger to be able to handle it and now I'm drawn to a more physical practice to balance out the energetic one.
Sounds good to me, makes sense too. Now, how do I find the time for all this practicing?!? lol Off to do some asana now!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Ashtanga Yoga
Wow, I just practiced the primary series of Ashtanga Yoga for the second time this week! What is going on?!? lol
Here I am, I've gotten into Kundalini Yoga so much that I've become a Sikh, a baptised, full Amritdhari Sikh, which isn't even common within the Indian Sikh community I'm told, and I'm being drawn back to my yogic roots, which was a daily Ashtanga practice. I can't imagine I would ever practice it daily again, its too much for my body right now, but I'm enjoying it and approaching it from a different perspective completely.
Before I used it as my morning sadhana, daily discipline and body sculpter. Now that I've explored Kundalini Yoga to the level that I'm starting my teacher training this weekend, I am so in touch with energy movement thats its changed my approach to the practice. I now see it as what it is, opening up the body from the lower chakras to the upper to free up the energy and leave you energized.
I was inspired to practice it again one day after watching Ashtanga, NY with my friend and first student Patrice in Collinsville one day. So I went to class with it in mind and my second student Susan was there and was like, lets do ashtanga primary series today, ok? I said yeah! So I've done it at home once a week since then. This week I did it Monday morning and then again this afternoon, not the whole thing, but enough that I was feeling good, did closing sequence and pranayama and savasana. Now I'm sore, but a good sore and feel open, energetic, am even vibrating almost a little too much lol.
So this book came out a couple months ago to commemorate Guruji's demise, or rather celebrate his teachings, and its all interviews with his first
American students and some of the most prominent Ashtanga teachers around the globe. Its awesome, and my teacher, Nancy Gilgoff, has the best interview in it, just love it. But what I'm coming to discover is that he used to change the sequencing based on you and what you needed at the time, only formalizing it once the classes got too big to do that. He even, while working through his practice, used to hold postures for a long time, to feel their effects and to master them before moving on to the next one. Wow!
This is something that is a big deal, to most ashtangis anyway. Its unheard of to change the sequence of asanas in most cases. So now I have even a different approach to it. I can skip something or work on something differently if I want. I mean, hell, I always could I suppose, no one would've known since I practiced on my own, other than me. But I had found something that tapped into my fundamentalist christian roots and stuck to it, until about 2006 maybe anyway, then I started straying.
Hmmm, approaching an asana practice as a way to open up energy channels? What a novel idea! Thats the point of it anyway. I guess now, being Sikh, not drinking, no meat, not much to clog me up physically anymore and having cleaned out my nadis through Kundalini Yoga, I am actually able to finally see what hatha yoga was originally meant to be.
Hmmm again, much exploring I see in my near future, I do. Kundalini teacher training on one end, learning more in depth about the systematic movement of energy and a renewed interest in hatha yoga, just in time for winter when I'm hibernating anyway and have nothing better do.
What could be more grand?!? Lol, a bit dramatic I know, but for gods sake I am a gay Sikh male living in the midwest, I think drama is meant to be happening in my life, hahahahaha!
Here I am, I've gotten into Kundalini Yoga so much that I've become a Sikh, a baptised, full Amritdhari Sikh, which isn't even common within the Indian Sikh community I'm told, and I'm being drawn back to my yogic roots, which was a daily Ashtanga practice. I can't imagine I would ever practice it daily again, its too much for my body right now, but I'm enjoying it and approaching it from a different perspective completely.
Before I used it as my morning sadhana, daily discipline and body sculpter. Now that I've explored Kundalini Yoga to the level that I'm starting my teacher training this weekend, I am so in touch with energy movement thats its changed my approach to the practice. I now see it as what it is, opening up the body from the lower chakras to the upper to free up the energy and leave you energized.
I was inspired to practice it again one day after watching Ashtanga, NY with my friend and first student Patrice in Collinsville one day. So I went to class with it in mind and my second student Susan was there and was like, lets do ashtanga primary series today, ok? I said yeah! So I've done it at home once a week since then. This week I did it Monday morning and then again this afternoon, not the whole thing, but enough that I was feeling good, did closing sequence and pranayama and savasana. Now I'm sore, but a good sore and feel open, energetic, am even vibrating almost a little too much lol.
So this book came out a couple months ago to commemorate Guruji's demise, or rather celebrate his teachings, and its all interviews with his first
American students and some of the most prominent Ashtanga teachers around the globe. Its awesome, and my teacher, Nancy Gilgoff, has the best interview in it, just love it. But what I'm coming to discover is that he used to change the sequencing based on you and what you needed at the time, only formalizing it once the classes got too big to do that. He even, while working through his practice, used to hold postures for a long time, to feel their effects and to master them before moving on to the next one. Wow!
This is something that is a big deal, to most ashtangis anyway. Its unheard of to change the sequence of asanas in most cases. So now I have even a different approach to it. I can skip something or work on something differently if I want. I mean, hell, I always could I suppose, no one would've known since I practiced on my own, other than me. But I had found something that tapped into my fundamentalist christian roots and stuck to it, until about 2006 maybe anyway, then I started straying.
Hmmm, approaching an asana practice as a way to open up energy channels? What a novel idea! Thats the point of it anyway. I guess now, being Sikh, not drinking, no meat, not much to clog me up physically anymore and having cleaned out my nadis through Kundalini Yoga, I am actually able to finally see what hatha yoga was originally meant to be.
Hmmm again, much exploring I see in my near future, I do. Kundalini teacher training on one end, learning more in depth about the systematic movement of energy and a renewed interest in hatha yoga, just in time for winter when I'm hibernating anyway and have nothing better do.
What could be more grand?!? Lol, a bit dramatic I know, but for gods sake I am a gay Sikh male living in the midwest, I think drama is meant to be happening in my life, hahahahaha!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Read this
THis blog entry by someone I know, not too well, but I do know him and am good friends with his brother just came out and it states exactly how I feel about Sikhi and how I approach it, without judgment. If I want judgment I can go back to my Baptist upbringing!
http://www.mrsikhnet.com/2010/09/13/look-in-the-mirror/
http://www.mrsikhnet.com/2010/09/13/look-in-the-mirror/
Monday, September 13, 2010
Training
So I just received my curriculum for the kundalini yoga teacher training that I start this weekend. Reading it I felt excitement, but I also realized I feel nervous about it too!
It dawned on me that I've never taken a training before, not like this. I have never deliberately paid someone to learn from them, thereby admitting that someone knows more about something than I do. LOL. I know, I know, I should be beyond that by now after almost 11 years of practice, but that is what I realized about how I feel about it.
I've used a kundalini yoga practice so intensely for the past two years, to clear out physical issues as well as mental issues, maybe even energetic blockages, to the point that I came to the conclusion that I need to share this with others and then so began, then immediately also realized that I need some more schooling in this area to feel completely comfortable being able to present it well. Not that I'm not presenting well, just that for some reason I don't have all the answers when it comes to this practice. It is very regimented but within that small amount of discipline (small as in time and sequencing for just a bit a day)I have gained more freedom than from any other practice that I've ever done, mainly being ashtanga and Anusara, both variations of hatha yoga.
So now I feel clear most of the time and its an amazing feeling, love it, and its only exponentially expanded when I add in my Sikh sadhana. So, this morning I slept in and then got up and did ashtanga primary series! WTF?!? I have no idea, other than the fact that change is in the air, much change. As per Yogi Bhajan's teachings and the astrological community, the Age of Aquarius is finally coming into play, so thats one huge change. Energy opening up for all of us on a major level. Then there's Mercury that just came out of retrograde today, yet another astrological thingee to contemplate, especially when one thinks of the tumultuousness of the past 3 weeks! Then I turned 40 this year, then I took amrit and became a full-fledged, baptised Sikh. On and on and on . . .
And the changes coming up that I can feel boiling around in the stew of the Universe. Just feel it, maybe I am anxious for those changes to emerge too? Maybe not, who knows. I am allowing it all to unfold as it will and roll, to the best of my ability, with the punches as the saying goes.
I love change, and embrace it, usually anyway, and can observe when its coming on just not too sure normally what form it will take. So I'm anxious, yes, for this next phase in my life and yes, for the other stuff beyond that, but will be okay until it choses to rear its head. And then I'll walk up to it and give it a big hug, tell it I love it and move forward towards the next thing while I incorporate it into my being.
Sat Nam!
It dawned on me that I've never taken a training before, not like this. I have never deliberately paid someone to learn from them, thereby admitting that someone knows more about something than I do. LOL. I know, I know, I should be beyond that by now after almost 11 years of practice, but that is what I realized about how I feel about it.
I've used a kundalini yoga practice so intensely for the past two years, to clear out physical issues as well as mental issues, maybe even energetic blockages, to the point that I came to the conclusion that I need to share this with others and then so began, then immediately also realized that I need some more schooling in this area to feel completely comfortable being able to present it well. Not that I'm not presenting well, just that for some reason I don't have all the answers when it comes to this practice. It is very regimented but within that small amount of discipline (small as in time and sequencing for just a bit a day)I have gained more freedom than from any other practice that I've ever done, mainly being ashtanga and Anusara, both variations of hatha yoga.
So now I feel clear most of the time and its an amazing feeling, love it, and its only exponentially expanded when I add in my Sikh sadhana. So, this morning I slept in and then got up and did ashtanga primary series! WTF?!? I have no idea, other than the fact that change is in the air, much change. As per Yogi Bhajan's teachings and the astrological community, the Age of Aquarius is finally coming into play, so thats one huge change. Energy opening up for all of us on a major level. Then there's Mercury that just came out of retrograde today, yet another astrological thingee to contemplate, especially when one thinks of the tumultuousness of the past 3 weeks! Then I turned 40 this year, then I took amrit and became a full-fledged, baptised Sikh. On and on and on . . .
And the changes coming up that I can feel boiling around in the stew of the Universe. Just feel it, maybe I am anxious for those changes to emerge too? Maybe not, who knows. I am allowing it all to unfold as it will and roll, to the best of my ability, with the punches as the saying goes.
I love change, and embrace it, usually anyway, and can observe when its coming on just not too sure normally what form it will take. So I'm anxious, yes, for this next phase in my life and yes, for the other stuff beyond that, but will be okay until it choses to rear its head. And then I'll walk up to it and give it a big hug, tell it I love it and move forward towards the next thing while I incorporate it into my being.
Sat Nam!
Friday, September 10, 2010
Right now
I sit here right now, having the computer down for the past two weeks and now its back up, and I had about three different ideas for blogs, now nothing! lol
So now what? Do I just write the crap in my head? I think thats what these things are for maybe, catharsis? lol I really don't have anything floating around my head today. I'm anxious to get out of the house and head to Starbucks for my iced soy chai and to continue reading the second book in the series that the show Legend of the Seeker was based on, great stuff. But for some reason I sat down to blog, maybe in the hopes that some great shit would flow out of me.
Hmm, not going to happen methinks! I shall away then and see what inspiration comes and maybe write some more once I'm home again.
Sat nam
So now what? Do I just write the crap in my head? I think thats what these things are for maybe, catharsis? lol I really don't have anything floating around my head today. I'm anxious to get out of the house and head to Starbucks for my iced soy chai and to continue reading the second book in the series that the show Legend of the Seeker was based on, great stuff. But for some reason I sat down to blog, maybe in the hopes that some great shit would flow out of me.
Hmm, not going to happen methinks! I shall away then and see what inspiration comes and maybe write some more once I'm home again.
Sat nam
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