Holiday

Typically I'm not too big on holidays, after all holiday is a run-on for holy day and isn't every day holy? Or shouldn't it be? I try to think so anyway, although I don't always act holy...

This year was no different, I wasn't looking forward to it at all. No particular reason why this season, just following an old pattern I think. So when I asked my mom what was going on and we talked for a while, for some reason I agreed to spend the night at her house on Christmas eve, something I never do, but I did this year and I ended up enjoying myself.

This yoga stuff has just proven itself to me even more by helping me grow into someone who can be okay and even happy with anything that life can dredge up. I'm not sure when but I had become someone who didn't like the holidays and this year made me know that not to be my truth any longer.

I went to Illinois to my grandmas early in the day of Christmas eve, then went to moms and we left and went to see a movie, Saving Mr. Banks (very good film btw), then dinner, then home showered and slept. On Christmas morning, after sleeping 9.5 hours mind you, something I never do, off to my sisters which was a very good time as well.

I left there and decided to go see the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, another film, on the way home and dinner too before getting home. The movie dredged up my fears of going to India but also showed me that they are unfounded and without the excitement that fear also offers life wouldn't be worth living. I left the theatre feeling quite amazing and ready to take on the world.

I also left knowing the life of privilege that I lead. Meaning that I have lived quite a life. In the late 80's I left home, started a job in the big city (St. Louis believe it or not lol), started exploring the fact that I was a gay man and going out to gay bars at 18, I then also became a drag queen for about a year, what a crazy bit of time that was (partly because every time I did drag I was also on acid!). I didn't do much but sleep around a lot and drink a whole lot in the early 90's, all the way to the late 90's I think, then I fell in love. A love at first site that no one ever has and we all may only have the privilege to experience once, if that. Then I became a stripper, dancing nude on a bar in socks for tips, just to explore the issues I had with my physical body. Very quickly behind that I discovered yoga, and that's when it all started to change. Now since then I've left a corporate job, studied yoga on Maui, lived in Europe for a month, traveled around the country with my mother, switched yogas completely thrice, coming back to the one I originally fell in love with. Became a Sikh, changed my name legally, built a life for myself around yoga and teaching it, that I love mind you, and began teaching yoga teachers. Now I'm about to embark on a trip to India to study yoga in depth.

I've discovered what I love and what I want in life, and all of that shifts and flows and changes in many unexpected ways all the time, but that's okay. How many people have the privilege of knowing what they want to do with their life and actually set out to do it?!?

See what I mean about privilege?

Now I'm so excited to get up early tomorrow and practice yoga and then go and teach it, I love this! How did I not find appreciation for things before now? Maybe I did, just at a different level than now, but now is where I am and now I'm so happy and in love with all the people in my life and what I do with my life!

I can't wait to be in India and experience the culture and the way they approach everything in life as such a holy experience, I feel like I should be there already. Maybe I am...

Crossroads

So, does anyone else feel like they're at a crossroads in their life? I do. This impending trip to Mysore to study Ashtanga at its source is a big thing in my life that I'm finally doing, but in that it's so big, it's bringing up many, many other things in life that I've hedged on or avoided, or have delved deeply into and went wrong. All the things in life that could be considered a crossroads...

Choices, we all have them, many of us having been trained to take the safe choices. Only to find years later that the safe choice may not have been the right one for you, but as part of your path you took that one and followed it until it led you to another choice, sometimes leading you right back to the same situation, presented differently, and gives you the chance to make that choice all over again usually having different repercussions because you're at a very different place in life at this time.

So, here I am, I'm going to India this time, not wimping out like I did back when I meant to go in 2000 or 2002. Going to dive in deep. And now I'm friends on Facebook with a lot of Ashtangis who are over there now and I'm seeing their pics posted, the notes from Sharath's conferences that are inspiring to me, the status updates telling of their practice and/or adventures for that day and it's just terrifying me. Not terrifying me in a way that makes me scared to go, but in a way that's inspiring me even more because I know I'm facing a fear around something and am still going anyway. So am diving into the fire and asking it to burn away all that no longer serves me.

Much like the practice, which will chisel you into a fine tuned organism, not just your body but your psyche and your energetic fields as well. So everything in life can be approached this way, and I'm going for it. No more backing away, but facing the things and moving through them. I'm teaching a bunch of workshops lately and before I go that are inspired by my practice and things that I've wanted to share for a while and I'm dealing with people that I need to organize my feelings around, all sorts of things.

This will be my work for the new year, maybe you'll join me???

Change of seasons

For the first time in a long time I'm not being super affected by the shift to Autumn, usually it's the most powerful seasonal change for me. My yoga practice must be working!

I've done a lot of work with the practice this year, especially in workshops with certified teachers, and it has changed my focus to a very internal one. What's funny is that I always thought if I allowed this shift to happen then I would finally be the yogi who wants nothing to do with society and want to go live in a cave, but the exact opposite has happened. The external stuff doesn't bother me as much anymore and in fact I've found that I love being around people and have been spending a lot of time with others, while still enjoying my alone time just as much.

Odd, I know. But then if you do actually know me, you probably think me odd anyway lol... I'm completely okay with that too, so just think whatever you want about me.

This year has been a great year for me as far as studying with teachers go and this weekend I'll be going to another one with Jodi Blumstein, so yet another period of study with me. All of these things has deepened my practice and made me realize it's importance in my life, not just the asanas but pranayama and meditation as well, and the yamas and niyamas in my daily dealings with others, so it's been great.

Also, all of these things this year have been to prepare me for India where I'm heading in February to study with Sharath all of March, yes finally I'm going to be able to do it! Excited isn't the proper word, although it conveys a bit of the emotion I'm feeling, fear of course comes up, but in a lesser quantity than ever before. I got my 10 year visa with such ease and got accepted into classes for March so in my mind that's the universes way of telling me it's time. I even started a campaign on gofundme.com and it's getting donations, so even more reason to know I'm fully supported by source in this instance, I just wasn't ready before. Now I am!

Another sign is that I've got a small Mysore group going, which is the most awesome way to practice as far as I'm concerned and they are enjoying it as well. So all is flowing and even more importantly I'm allowing the flow and going floating along with it this time, not trying to impede it and self-perpetuating my own resistance!

So, come to class, I've been feeling super inspired lately, especially in my Ashtanga classes. You may just have a great experience!

Ashtanga

As fall comes in to full bloom I've been digging into my practice more deeply. After seeing Mark Robberds last month I just spent the weekend with Kino MacGregor in Indianapolis, and I must say it was the best weekend I've spent with her. It made me want to be with her and her husband in India for their two week retreat in January, so I'm looking into that...

A few of my students went as well and we had a great time, or rather I can only speak for myself, I had a good time. Kino was more clear and happy and inspiring that ever before and the group who went were full of great conversations and laughter, so it was a much needed weekend full of hard work (especially shoulders) and fun.

I just felt more connected to her this time and that we're building a bond as teacher and student, it feels good to have someone that knows so much and feels the practice in a very similar way to the way that I do, but then I've had that with a lot teachers this year.

This year has been the year of study for me, starting with the Ashtanga Confluence back in February with my first teacher Nancy Gilgoff, whom it was great to see. Of course there were other teachers there as well, but it was so good to bond with her again. Then Eddie Stern at the same event, who helped me with Marichasana D and the beginning of the healing of my sacrum which was out so intensely then. Then Kino in June in Chicago, which was great because I'd been to Moksha before and was getting to know the people there. Then back to Chicago in September for 10 days to see Abraham and spend 6 days practicing with Mark, which was just awesome, only to see Kino again this past weekend with her best message ever. I may even go to Springfield, IL in November to see Jodi Blumstein for an Ashtanga weekend. Great year for being a student!

This practice is hitting so many of my students so strongly right now, and shifting me yet again, that I just get more and more excited to do it, and to dig into some more of the pranayama as well. I got David Garrigues dvd and book about the Ashtanga pranayama practice, which I've been doing since I learned third series back in 200 or 4, maybe 5? But its broken down with exercises to feel the apana and prana vayus and talks, love it, so as it gets colder I'll be inside digging into this more deeply this winter as I prepare to go to India and if India doesn't happen until next fall, then I'll be digging into some more and more workshops, they are awesome lately!

So if you're reading this, come to my Ashtanga class or something soon, while the inspiration lasts!

Hello, I'm introspective, how are you?

Not sure why I haven't written in a while, it's been a busy time so maybe that's it. I just haven't had the space to become more introspective and allow the integration of the work I've been doing on myself.

Well, not so this day. I've had almost the whole day to myself and it's getting colder finally and the leaves are starting to fall, so let the introspection begin! lol

I've been noticing this week that I've gotten more detail oriented in my classes, not so much as far as alignment goes but as far as the breath and the movements and how they coincide have been going, and working more individually with each person even though we've been in a room full of people.

I'm having deeper experiences and am wanting others to have them too, not just to feel bad when all the emotions come up or to get more sore, but to dig in and get to know themselves better. Really do the work. I've gotten some the best compliments of my teaching this week from some sources I wasn't expecting them from too, one of them even mentioning I'm the only teacher he's ever gone to who tells you to breath into your back while you slide your pubic bone back between your inner spiraled thighs and root down both sit bones at the same time and that detail is what he loves about my classes.

I love that, because I really am just trying to put into words the feelings and deepest expressions of the practice that I have come up for me, and that's just on the physical level, not the emotional or psychic level, but I do sometimes cue those things as well! lol

It's a time of year that all of us seem to be padding our caves and starting to settle in a bit more and prepare for a long winters nap, although we don't technically do that. But the energy of that happens anyway. We start to express ourselves differently, we start to feel everything deeper, become more touchy and almost less expressive because we're so tucked into ourselves.

It's a time for me that I feel I can almost touch my inner being, not just get clues here and there of how to run my day or which turn to take, but with each emotion that comes up we have a chance to notice what we're thinking as it arises and notice what direction we should take our thoughts in order to get back in alignment with our inner being or not. Sometimes we just like to wallow in our icky feelings and hey, that's just part of being human, but these days I try to catch that and turn a corner before manifestations start happening! If we wait until they actually happen they are a lot harder to deal with than if we catch them at the emotional level.

So my work this fall and winter is to keep on my toes in observing my emotions so that I can tell if I'm heading in the right direction in life or if I'm about to trip myself up bigtime. My yoga practice has been strong lately and in the sensitivity that I create within myself from my practice I should be able to maintain.

So maybe I'm about to start cuing in my classes to notice how you feel while you're doing a certain move, or a certain breath? Sound good? Then you can start to gain that level of sensitivity and use it for you growth and expansion too!

All of this depth in my practice started after that week studying Ashtanga with Mark in Chicago and in just over a week I'll be seeing Kino again in Indianapolis, so we'll see how I'm affected by her teachings that weekend. Each time I've gone to study this year, which has been a lot for me I've gotten deeper and deeper and deeper into the knowing that this practice is for me, for the entirety of my life and the way it's affected my teaching has gotten my students deeper and deeper as well, so they tell me, and that's another reason this is for me. To help me expand and grow and the same for them.

Full moon this Friday AND a lunar eclipse this Friday, both adding to all this process of going in I've been writing about, come see me, we'll help each other stay on top of things, not get squashed under them!

3 Very interesting weeks...

So many of you know I took in a guy who was stranded here in St. Louis, some may not.

Back on August 19th I went to the park and started talking to this guy and he had been kicked out of his friends place, but had been traveling and was from Portland. So I let him use my shower and took him to lunch and kept his largest bag for him, so he didn't have to haul it around. When I went to look for him at the park after I was done teaching for the day I couldn't find him, so the next day we found each other and again, shower and lunch, then we missed each other that night.

The third night we finally hooked up and he stayed with me from then through the next Monday morning when two gracious students of mine had donated money and I added in the rest, to get him home on a bus, to Portland.

This experience really taught me a lot about myself and my comfort zone, or rather the current comfort zone I've created for myself and how unbending it is, so I've been paying attention to how I feel when situations arise and how I act, and if I catch myself, adjust accordingly. But I also found out that I do have compassion. I've always thought of compassion as something that would not be found in my being because I do believe we create our own reality based on the vibrations we put out, or if you will, by the choices we make every moment of every day based on how we're feeling and how it corresponds to those vibrations.

But that doesn't mean everyone is in the know about this, and therefore we can have compassion for the way they're feeling while in a situation and very unsure of how to get out of it. There's a bunch more I could write about this but that will be for a future post, since then I've seen Abraham and been through a week yoga intensive with a certified Ashtanga teacher and have a different vein of thought going through my mind.

But then I found myself missing him after I sent him on his way. He's a nice guy and not bad company at all, so even though I love living alone and my alone time, there is space in my existence for companionship, and I contemplated this as I moved through my week before I drove to Chicago. Probably more on that later as well.

So first, Abraham. I have to say their message has never been more succinct, they even remarked how high the vibration was in the room and they just gave it to us. We kept elucidating further and further, gaining more and more clarity. And they used the word clarity and how when we can maintain that high flying feeling, which corresponds to our high flying vibration we basically gain more and more clarity and no, there is never and end to the amount of clarity one can attain or demand. It goes ever deeper and deeper and feels better and better.

So I came off of that very high, couldn't even see straight for two days lol, but I made my way about.

This was in Chicago by the way and one of my students/friends had given me the use of her condo, very lovely of her, and so I didn't have to spend the money on a place to stay for the rest of the week, where I was going to Moksha Yoga every morning for a Mysore class with Mark Robberds, then over the weekend (last weekend to be exact)there were three workshops, a kirtan and then Sunday another Mysore class which was perfect because then we could put into play what we'd been working on in the workshops.

Now, I love Ashtanga and I do it daily but I was sore as fuck for those first four Mysore mornings. Not sure if its because of the energy of the room, having so many practitioners in there with me, the way Mark held the space for the classes, which was a very deep, quiet place to dig in deep, or because of having a teacher observing me there, so I dug my deepest! But also, having the workshops and then final Mysore class just made me that much more sore, but I tell you, my practice has changed and progressed in that short time and tonight when I teach, some of that stuff will be coming out. Probably more and more as I practice at home using the techniques and teach over the coming weeks.

So today I took the day off, did my castor oil bath last night to pull the soreness and heat out of my muscles and joints and just relaxed today all day long. Now though I'm finding myself eager to practice tomorrow morning and wishing I had today lol, I know, we humans are a mess right?!? My body did need the day of rest since I skipped two of them last week due to the scheduling of the workshops and classes.

I'll have more and more to write on this as I move through my week, teaching and practicing, but that's all I've got for right now. I'm adjusting to being back in the Lou after 10 tens gone and many great growth experiences, it's always weird to come back to a place where there just is almost no Ashtanga community and especially from Chicago, because they have such a great, dedicated one, but I'll manage. Always do.

Until next time, keep practicing, see you soon!

Holding the space...

What does this phrase mean to you? To most yoga teachers it means we, as we enter the room to teach are fully in control of the energy in the room, which also means as people come in from their day, they may be in a shitty place from work, or from an argument with their spouse, or they may be hyped up from too much coffee, or too much stimulation of their nervous system from what they've done all day long, or many, many other options. Pick one. The point being that they are coming to you to help teach them techniques that will make them feel better and more balanced, and in that reliance they are giving themselves to you.

In their giving themselves to you, you are responsible for them in a way not many other people will ever be. So, its your duty to serve that need in them.

So in a way, holding the space is being the most selfless being you can be, taking in the energy of the group, and it will most likely be as scattered as can be, channeling it and moving it on out and moving them through to the better feeling place.

I'm writing this mostly in response to a student in my teacher training program at Yogasource, who also happens to be a great friend of mine, who had no clue what this phrase meant.

I had used it in response to how tired I was after having taught the teacher training by myself on Saturday from 8:30-5:30, and that while I was also holding the space for the park class that they attended which had over 230 people in it! But then I also taught my class on Sunday which the trainees also attended and then had them again fro 2 more hours after.

He, being used to working a corporate job for over 8 hours a day didn't understand why I was so drained after only such a short time, so this is why.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love teaching the training that whole time, this is a great group but they are also all strong in their own right, so have lots of big energy to contain, and I was responsible for that, so today my body was having none of the idea of me practicing and teaching. I rescheduled a private and took it easy most of the day, teaching my evening class and doing well, but now I'm more tired.

On top of that I also had my 7th rolfing session this morning which is when they open up your sinuses, your gums, your whole head and neck and shoulders, so was a bit loopy, which made me more tired! lol, but its all good.

My life is getting busier and busier, but all doing things I love, private lessons teaching Ashtanga, training people to be teachers, teaching my classes which I love, and especially teaching more and more Ashtanga (which is my passion)and even teaching an Ashtanga class to only teachers that is awesome as well as getting deeper and deeper into my own practice of asana and meditation. I really must say, I can't complain. When you're doing what you love, you make time and space to do all these things and as you get more and more appreciative of doing what you love, more and more comes your way, money, classes, private lessons, whatever it is that you love.

So figure out what you love, and do it!

As Guruji often said "Practice, Practice, Practice, Practice ... all is coming."

Yes Guruji, I now am just starting to get what you mean by all...