Monday, January 11, 2010

What is Yoga?


When I worked on Teacher Training at Wake Up Yoga an essay that TT's are assigned to write is entitled, "what is yoga?" Over the 5 years I worked on that program I found myself aways amazing at what I like to call the 'heart and unicorn' descriptions of students personal relationship with yoga. Today I find myself sitting at the end of power outage number 9 of the day. It all started really early this morning just past midnight, fan off, stagnant air, and mosquito's buzzing by. I was awake until the power came back on an hour and half later bringing my ceiling fan back to life and keeping the mosquito's struggling against a current of air.

3:30am. The alarm goes off and yet again the power is out. I struggle to find my flashlight and then my headlight. I brush my teeth in the dark, put my clothes on, and manage to unlock my gate all before 4am. With no street lights it is really dark, and I regret not bringing my flashlight for the walk to shala.

Today is the first day of Mysore practice and again being in the first batch really sets the bar. Despite the poor sleep practice is good. I noticed today that Sharath is really keeping his eyes on Supta Kurmasana maybe even more so because this week everyone does Primary Series only and he is stopping people if they aren't binding themselves or if he can't bind them. Shockingly, and I don't know where this has come from I put myself into it deeply.

Today I started philosophy and chanting at Jayashree's. Like everything around here a new course started and we will be all this month (Monday- Thursday) memorizing and discussing chapter one of the Sutra's. I am so excited. Today's class was amazing two hours long and a small group. After we covered the material Jayashree's brother kept teaching and after the day I've had it was like he speaking to me first he said, "yoga is not a continuous process....this is hard." Followed by this new definition of yoga that I am going to sit with for a long time I can tell:

Yoga is not a sugar coated pill it is a bitter coated sugar.

I am going to put some balm on my bites and set my alarm for 3:30am and it is nearly time for bed.

Good Night & OM Shanti

Total Dropbacks-3

2 comments:

Judy Manning said...

Always a great way to start my day...hearing from you. Try to rest and take care of yourself. Thanks to Thomas in helping you resolve the insect problem. Stay healthy, happy and safe. Love U

Tina said...

Um...so does that toothpaste have Super Shakti??