Tag Archives: Spirit Yoga Studio

“Enjoy Your Practice”

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Enjoy Your Practice

Another three little words that packs a powerful punch.

As a student myself, I have surely heard these words before from the mouths of other teachers who I’ve taken class with, at least one, I’m sure of. And for me, it’s a most natural follow up to the opening chant, along with “ohayou gozaimas” or good morning these last couple of months.

I left Osaka yesterday with a happy heart, knowing that this little reminder to find ease and joy in one’s practice is part of my contribution to this inspired and inspiring yoga community in Japan.

It’s so plain, it’s so simple, and yet sometimes really easily forgotten. We must be in joy-fullness as we practice. Without it, it’s an exercise in struggle. The attitude we bring into the practice dictates how our yoga practice takes shape.

Even when it’s hard, even when there’s struggle, the joy is always there, always waiting to be discovered, to be experienced, this blissful feeling, a jewel in the rough.

Photo taken with me and some of the students early Tuesday morning before my departure at the studio in Osaka. 

Build Foundation, Find Flow

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Build Foundation, Find Flow

September 28, 2013. My first workshop in Osaka, Japan. May there be more in the future!

It was a quick two and a half hours lecturing on the tenets of yoga philosophy that make up the foundation of asana and experiencing tristhana (breath, posture/bandha, and drishti) in a variety of ways in an exploratory asana class.

Next Sunday, October 6, 3-5pm, we will be having a special workshop offering “Prepare for Self Practice,” which will go over principles of basic adjustments in the primary series as well as some framework for vinyasa and backbending.

There is a week gap between my departure from the mysore program here in Osaka and the arrival of Veronique Tan, the program’s new teacher.

The workshop is aimed at inspiring students to find the gifts and the joys of self practice, which is many many fold, during the interim.

The First Row

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The First Row

In the mysore room, practitioners trickle in at the start of class. When the first row fills before the class officially starts, it often becomes one of those full-power kind of practice days.

Somehow, these early students set the pace, they warm the room, they get it going: a flow in which all the later currents can just pour into. And the studio, most of the time, fills–I think, attracted by the power of practice already brewing in the building.

Sunday Suryanamaskar

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Sunday Suryanamaskar

It’s Sunday. We start mysore practice with Suryanamaskara A. Most of the time we forget the meaning of the things we do automatically. We confuse the series of postures as a warm-up–and it is, though somewhat different from what we think we are doing.

We do warm the body, we warm it as we bow to the light of the sun. We melt away the layers that need melting.

We wake from the winter morning, and rise to the springtime of our day. We grow. So that we may enjoy the warmth of summer and later harvest the fruits of our labor, before the sun goes down again, and the cycle starts all over.

Everyday, we move through the seasons. In our practice, in our lives.

The practice is the practice for our practice.

Dance your heart out

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Today felt like the inner dance process properly, finally landed in Osaka as four Sprit Yoga Studio students joined the session. It was time to turn things inside for a moment, to experience what is deep within through the body.

With little explanation, a matter of necessity due to my lack of Japanese, we went straight into experience. First, an exercise of feeling the energy moving our hands. Then with a demonstration with Fusako-san, a student from the Mysore program, who attended the first ID session.  As Fusako-san explained her experience, the lightness and the lack of thought in the movement, I looked around. Participants looked calm but a little baffled.

Nothing left to explain, we decided to go ahead and dive in. And dive in we did. I prepared an all Shiva-inspired sound track to help us into the process. Shiva, who is Nataraja, the dancer, would lead us into it. And he did not fail.

ImageThere was dancing. Small, quiet movements. Full, all-out movements. There was some emotion. And a lot of peace.

There is no formula for the dance. But when it works, we simply know it. We feel its power, we feel the opening in the body.

 As we shared afterwards, one participant asked what was the purpose of the dance? The dance is a healing modality. It can move energy, emotion stuck in the body. We are able to observe it and then in the observing, release it. But I added that my own purpose was to help people see who they really are beyond all the constructs, to simply remember, if only for a moment, their truest of natures.

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The empty room

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The empty room

An empty place is a space of great potential. It waits for filling. It has room for it. When we empty out, when we create space in our bodies, in our minds, in our lives, we invite the remarkable new. It inevitably comes. And fills the room until it is time to be emptied out once again.

Spirit Yoga Studio on September 19, Harvest Full Moon Day. The satsang circle waits for students to arrive for today’s Yogic Warrior lecture class.

Photo by Akemi Hakuto

Practice Rain or Shine

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Practice Rain or Shine

“If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm” –Frank Lane

Early Monday morning, a typhoon blustered through Osaka. I cycled in the rain to the studio and wondered if anyone else would make it. 6:30 rolled around, nada. 6:45. Then Yuki arrived. Later Yukako. Then Naoko and Ricki. A small room, but steady energy. With flood waters up and some train routes stalled, It was understandable that many were absent. By the time mysore practice was done, so was the storm. The sun had come out, all bright and shiny.

Photograph: Yuki in purvottanasana.

Osaka Workshops: Ashtanga Foundations & Flow / Inner Dance: Doing, Being, Seeing

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It’s been an amazing month and a half here in Osaka. I would like to think I have given my lion’s share, but I know the truth is I have, once again, received more than I have been able to give. The blessings abound. So the next three weeks is a sort of no-holds barred kind of sharing. In the mysore room at least, it feels like we’re past the getting-to-know-you phase. And it’s all about getting into the nooks and crannies of practice. Getting into the details. Refining.

I’m also really excited to be able to share in a workshop setting the two processes which I hold dear, and which I think compliment each other so seamlessly. It will be an opportunity to dive into the rich experience of ashtanga and inner dance. They can be taken separately or as a pair. The lessons will weave nicely between the foundations of yoga and the fluidity of surrender more easily accessed through inner dance.

① Ashtanga Foundations & Flow

Ttristana, the 3-principles of breath, posture and drishti, create a steady foundation in practice and allow us to flow with power and grace.

With the support of yoga masters Patanjali and Krishna, we will look in to the philosophy behind these principles. And we will explore these principles in both basic and some more intermediate postures, discovering how stability creates flow in practice.

② Inner dance ~ A process of Doing, Seeing, Being ~

Moving meditation, connecting with one’s highest purpose, removing energetic blockages in the body.

As we playfully explore this healing modality from the Philippines, we will experience the magic and mystery of shakti or energy in the body, and how we all have the intuitive ability to dance with this energy and use it to feel free and fluid in our lives.

● ScheduleDate:
① September 28th Sat. 10:00 ~ 12:30 @ Spirit Yoga 5F
② October 5th Sat. 15:00 ~ 17:30 @ Spirit Yoga 6F

● Reservation:Please reserve before the dates below.
Ashtanga:. Sep 22nd Sun.
Inner Dance: Sep 29th Sun.

● Cost:For 1 class JPY4, 500 (Drop-in JPY5, 500)
For 2 classes JPY8, 000 (Spirit Yoga Members Only)

http://spirityogastudio.com/event/workshop/ashtanga-ws-kaz.html