Tag Archives: Led Class

Doing the New Year Thing Right

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Happy 2026! Excited to be here, I think we all want to know how to start the new year in a good way and, more importantly, how to keep this good way going through out the year.

A snapshot of our energetic led class at Nūn Center in Zamalek.

So here we are, well into the first week of the new year! Celebrations and familial obligations out of the way, we ought to be ready to jump into 2026 like we didn’t go through years of just absolute strangeness, right? Is this the year we get back on the program—whatever that was before things got complicated?

Year after year, resolutions are made and broken. Attempts at changing old patterns are strong in the first weeks of the new year but often waver. We shame spiral and then give up. We all know how it goes, so best to be really clear and upfront about it. We aren’t going to get different results by doing the same thing over and over again. We’re not going to break an old pattern by repeating other old patterns, see what I’m getting at?

For many of us “yoga” or something like it is on THE list. You know the one that will make our lives better. Maybe you’ve said: I’m going to do yoga everyday this year. Amazing! I love the enthusiasm. Definitely a good goal.

It’s important to understand what it is that you want to establish. Is it to do yoga daily? Or are you wanting to practice yoga so you can feel more calm, more stable, and create a healthy lifestyle for yourself? If it’s the latter, a daily yoga practice will certainly help but it will take more than turning up daily. It’s important to understand how yoga compliments the life that we are already living, how it can help us grow but also how it can help sustain us when life can be outrageously unsustainable. If your yoga practice is burning you out, then it’s not very yogic.

Here are some suggestions for turning up for yourself in the most yogic way possible in 2026:

  • Make the goals! Goals are good. But this isn’t a sport, the goal posts can move. It’s alright, I swear if you move them mid game.
  • Be forgiving. Don’t use the yoga practice to self flagellate. Of course I’m going to ask you where you’ve been if you missed some classes, that’s because I’m your teacher and I’m concerned and want to understand the context of your absence and how that might affect your practice. But don’t sweat it. Stuff happens.
  • Do your level best. What I mean by level best, is that our best changes based on the circumstances of our lives. Sometimes the best that you can muster is 100%, other times it might be less than 50%.
  • You in Yoga. Yoga is understanding yourself in the context of the yoga practice. Self mastery isn’t going to happen with mastering yogasana. It begins with you knowing how you feel in it!
  • Accountability is key! Sign up for a Mysore program is one way, it’s a bit of a social contract when you have a community of people to practice with. Have a yoga buddy. I have students who ask me directly, please help me stay on the mat and bug me. We need all the help we can get.
  • Strike while the iron is hot. Meaning start now while you have the will and the energy, go big, but be kind to yourself if you aren’t able to fulfill the big-ness of your own aspirations. it’s all good.

Starting a yoga practice, or restarting a yoga practice is a wonderful journey. Can’t wait for you to go on it or return to it. Maybe it will be easy. Maybe it won’t. As someone who has been practicing for 20 years, I can say no matter what level of difficulty it is to stay on the mat, it’s a hundred percent worth it!

Classes will be restarting on January 9th at Nūn Center in Zamalek: 9am Led Class. We’ll be holding a 4-hour intro course on January 10. 1-4pm at Nūn. Everything you need to know to give you the confidence to enter the daily program or to self-practice at home.

Beirut Calling: July 15-31 Ashtanga Intensive

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Some places like Lebanon simply call, it tugs at the heart until the only thing left to do is to answer…

On July 15 to July 31, I will be teaching an Ashtanga Yoga Intensive Workshop in one of my favorite places: Beirut, Lebanon! It’s hard to believe that it’s been over 5 years since my first and last trip to Lebanon, which was to teach at Yoga Souk Beirut. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and happy to be invited to a community that not only welcomed me as a visiting teacher, but my baby bump too. So much has happened, too numerous to list, but what can’t be clearer is how much growth happens when you are put through the fire, when you are literally put through the turning wheels of time. I have watched from afar how this community has grown and evolved and it has always been so close to my heart, I am so excited to reconnect and be a part of a new chapter together.

The Mysore program is open to all levels of practitioners, we are accepting beginners as well, so don’t be shy if you’re new to the practice. We’ll be diving into the rich tradition of Ashtanga Yoga through Mysore-style self-practice Monday to Friday, Led Classes on Saturdays, followed by Conference (a yoga talk and Q&A). I’ll also be offering a Backbending Workshop, details TBA. Again, all levels are welcome as we will be working heart opening postures from the ground up. So if you can stand, you can join!

To book with us, contact welcome@yogasoukbeirut.com

BEING Ashtanga Yoga

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When Filipa Veiga, Portuguese ashtanga teacher and writer, asked me to join the contingent of yoga teachers offering classes at the Being Gathering 2017 at Boomland in Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal, it put into motion a plan to spend the summer in Europe. I wanted to go see my teacher in mid August in London, I was suddenly committed to my first festival date in early July, what to do then with the time between?

Before I knew it, I had before me a bit of vacation, time to spend with beloved friends, a restart to a personal project that had been put on hold, and a small offering of teaching dates in Portugal, Romania and Vienna. I’m excited for this period after a 7 month stint in Cairo, where I will return to continue teaching after August.

These breaks from routine, the opportunities to connect with other teachers, especially to be a student myself, to tap into the global movement having to do with yoga and healing, allows me time to recharge and also ruminate on what exactly we are doing in our day to day, what is this practice, what is it’s purpose, why do we come to the mat day after day?

On the last day of the festival, I introduced ashtanga yoga as a tool for BEING, for being a better person, for being more focused, more attentive, more present. I alluded to the great Patanjali, to the first line of the Sutras: “Atha yoganuśasunam” Now, begins yoga. It brings us to the present moment. I ended the class with Patanjali, as well, and how he described yoga practice as “dirgha kala nairantarya asevitam,” a long time, without interruption, with whole hearted devotion.

And so begins the summer for me, starting with a most extraordinary of gathering of people, from healers to storytellers, green warriors to spiritual seekers, but also with a great sense of what it means to BE in yoga, how we have a responsibility to be as present with ourselves, our relations, our fellow creatures and planet as much as possible and how practice doesn’t end after our hour and half of sweating and grunting on the mat, it goes on into our day, in every action, in every breath.

Join me in this extraordinary experiment of being through the ashtanga yoga system. I teach in Yoga Lisboa July 11, 12, 13 (www.yoga-lisboa.com), Asociata Ashtanga/Ashtanga Yoga Romania (info@anahata.ro) on July 17-30, then finally in Mysore Vienna from July 31 to August 8 (www.mysorevienna.com).

Photos taken by Clara Lua, Being Gathering, July 2.

Aditya Hrdyam: Shine Your Light

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This morning before class, the sky was like a gray soup; the air unusually chilly. Hours later, the sun shines, melting the early autumn coolness. Once again, it is summer.

The power of the sun. Energizing. Warming. Nourishing us with light.

Today’s satsang topic, Aditya Hrdayam, the Heart of the Sun, is all about this. How when we shine the light of presence and awareness, we are able to dispel the shadows, so that we might see ourselves in our fullness.

How it is with such light that we are able to destroy our own egoic demons, just as Rama does the 10-headed demon Ravana, by calling on the powers of the sun.

Over the last week, leading up to the satsang today, I have been chanting this hymn at the start of each class. And some students have commented that they feel something different when they hear it.

I too feel something when I chant this. It’s like a clearing of the clouds in my mind and my heart, and having the warm sun shine on my face.

Even in the foreign Sanskrit, the hymn has the power to move, touch, inspire–without even knowing the words or meaning.

Perhaps the Aditya strikes an internal chord, we recognize in its vibrations our own heart and history, we recall some deep memory that we too, like the sun, are light beings destined to shine.

Aditya Hrdayam.
The Heart of the Sun.

PHOTO: Rest and shine. Students taking rest after led primary. It was a pleasure to share a part of the Ramayana with the students today. Excited that some have expressed an interest in learning the Aditya and reading the Ramayana! This makes me happy.

Gambatte! Do your Best!

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Friday morning led class is followed by Satsang here in Spirit Yoga Osaka. This is a time when the Mysore group can meet to practice other aspects of ashtanga yoga, whether it’s chanting or discussing yoga philosophy. Yesterday, July 4, 2014, was my first Friday here. It was a full power led primary; and I actually had fun counting the vinyasa-s! I particularly looked forward to discussing the Japanese word “ganbatte,” often translated as “Do your Best!” — which I realize can differ slightly in meaning depending on context. I wanted to explore “ganbatte” in the context of yoga and how I mean it when I say it in class. Here is a written expansion of yesterday’s talk.

I ask the circle of students (with the help of Naoko-san translating) gathered after Friday’s led class what they feel when someone tells them: “Ganbatte.” Many nod in agreement that it is a motivation, a cheer to go on, to do better. Hiroko-san, sitting across from me, nods too but also adds that depending on the context it can also come with a lot of pressure.

The Japanese are renowned for their work ethic and discipline, it is deeply ingrained in the culture–and beautiful to see when applied to the yoga practice. When taken to an extreme, it has a dark side. In Japan, karōshi, 過労死, or death from work, is legally recognized as a cause of death. People in their thirties have strokes or heart attacks due to working long hours and suffering from extreme stress–they’re just doing their best, right?!

This, of course, would not happen with the skillful yoga students here attending class and practicing with great awareness. Still, it begs the question: What does it mean to do your best in the yogic sense? What does ganbatte mean for the yogi?

Ganbatte is an encouragement, often translating to Do your Best! or Do well! or Be courageous!

It is supposed to inspire courage. In her famous TedTalk on Vulnerability, my favorite researcher/storyteller Brene Brown speaks about how the root of the word courage comes from the Latin “cor,” which is the heart. That in its early form, to be courageous was to speak from one’s heart.

These days we look at courage as bravery, having guts or gumption, daring to do what is difficult. All well and good. But to be truly courageous we must act according to what is true to our hearts as well, and from that place of authenticity we are able to act with greater awareness and equinimity. When we are true to ourselves, then we are in satya, one of the five yamas, the foundation of Patanjali’s ashtanga, or 8-limbs.

Now: what is best exactly? We often confuse what is best for what we think of as what is perfect. We often look towards some future ideal or goal. In our yoga practice, we often think of perfection as the final expression of the posture the way we see it in some yoga video, on YouTube or on Instagram.

Patanjali’s first sutra in the Yoga Sutras is “atha yoganusasanam.” Yoga is happening now. It does not look towards the future. It exists in the present moment.

Never does Patanjali outline the particularities of what an asana looks like, he doesn’t go into degrees or alignment, but rather on each individual’s feeling in the pose. “Sthira sukha asanam,” The posture is both steady and easy. And this will depend on the truth of each and every person, as they discover the balance between strength and flexibility, steadiness and comfort.

So wherever you truly are in your practice, so long as your put the right effort into finding that “sthira” and “sukha,” the right presence and awareness, no matter what the asana looks like, it is perfect for that particular moment.

So: Gambatte! Gambatte!!! Practice with true courage, practice from the heart! That is already the best practice.

PHOTO: Friday’s Led Class here at Spirit Yoga Osaka.

 

 

 

Weekend Warriors

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It may not seem so, but it takes courage to get to class sometimes–to subject yourself to Cairo traffic (even on lighter Fridays), to leave your family for a few hours in the middle of the weekend so you can have a moment to yourself to feel your own body and breath.

But the result is worth it: victorious, we enjoyed the two-hour half primary exploration working on breath, workshopping a little this elusive thing called bandha.

Next Friday, 1PM, November 29 will be the last of the Friday Led classes in Maadi. In December, La Zone schedule will be Sunday to Thursday mysore mornings 7-10am until December 15.

Photo: This Friday’s led class at La Zone, Maadi, Cairo.