Blog Archives

Bit of River

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Today, I’ve been here one crazy Cairo month. It’s gone by fast–not surprising as this is a very fast city. Like any big city, Cairo has a lot of edge, in its buildings, in its politics, in its character. And life on the edge can be hard.

Three times a week, however, as I make my monster commute between the areas of Maadi and Zamalek, something softens each time I see the Nile River.

The Nile cuts through all this crazy, maneuvering around obstacles adeptly. It knows its course and moves with ease into the sea.

It reminds me that navigating a place such as Cairo, or for that matter life at large, requires being a bit of river, being light and agile, soft and fluid. But also remembering there is weight in water, that it is a force of nature, that as it moves it generates a great deal of power.

Photo: The River Nile.

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.

Posture Perfect

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Posture Perfect

We strive for perfection. That’s built into us by our schooling, our upbringing, our culture and society. We come in to class and pour our bodies into shapes we’ve seen in magazines, posters, in youtube videos, and in the demonstrations by teachers we look up to. And we want our postures, asana, to be perfect!

But when it comes to yoga, what does it mean to have a perfect posture or asana?

Everyone’s bodies are built differently. We have different proportions, different ranges of motion. Some of us are stronger and have sturdier muscles. Some of us are softer and are more flexible. Our bodies have different gifts and along with that: different challenges.

There are certain issues of alignment, certain goals with each posture, and we must proceed with awareness of how to place the parts of the body in a way that is nourishing and supportive. We move to work certain areas, to open and balance. These principles are important to observe and practice.

Perfection, however, is not in the posture but in the practice. If you practice with presence, with love and awareness, if you breath full and even breaths, if you create the opportunity for the body to feel itself steady and easy, then no matter what your posture looks like at that moment, it is already perfect.

The truth is that what the posture looks like doesn’t matter as much as the effort in which we hold and move ourselves. And as our bodies change, what is perfect changes too. Such is practice, such is life.

Photo: Hala in downward facing dog, La Zone, Maadi, Cairo.

The Practice, Light & Dark

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The Practice, Light & Dark

There are days that practice is full of light, it is illuminating, and we stir from our rest (or savasana) with a sense of being one small step closer to enlightenment.

Then, there are the other times, when practice is like navigating the shadows and we feel obscured by our thoughts, fears, habits, or patterns of behavior.

When we have a light practice, we often rejoice: “Ah, I had a good practice!”

When we have a dark moment: “Oh, I had a hard practice!”

It is all practice. The light. The dark. The shades in between. We appreciate the light because of the darkness, we can discern the dark because we know light. They make the big picture, they make seeing full, nuanced, interesting.
Photo: Mysore practice at La Zone, Maadi

Inner Dance, Inner Movement in Cairo

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Inner dance is never easy to explain. The lightness in the body. The cosmic party as you dance with yourself. Something, however little, however quiet, moves.

I received an email today from a participant from last Thursday’s ID offering in Heliopolis (Shanti Yoga), who moved a little physically but felt a big shift within. He described the experience as moving, that the session was like a helpful push to restart a stalled vehicle.

Sometimes we feel broken. Our environment, our culture, our own expectations play upon us. Our mechanisms get rusty or ill used. Imbalances occur. The body suffers. And we identify so much with our physical pains, our frayed nerves, our sad feelings.

This makes me recall a chant that I love to sing:

so ham, so ham
so ham shivo ham
I am not my body,
my body is not me

so ham, so ham
so ham shivo ham
I am not my mind,
my mind is not me

so ham, so ham
so ham shivo ham
I am not my ego
my ego is not me

“So ham”, like “tat tvam asi”, means “I am That” — That which is unchanging, unlimited and eternal.

What would our lives be like if we could identify with That, if we saw That in ourselves, in all our fellow human beings and co-habitors in this planet, how would we live our lives like then? How could we not honor and love ourselves and each other?

Photo: Beautiful bronze. Sculpture by Nathan from Atelier de Nathan at Darb compound in Old Cairo.

Empty Pots

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IMG_6030A lot of times practice can be sublime, the process focusses the attention, the breath is the only sound…

But then there are the other times! when practicing is like swimming through a thick soupy sea of thoughts and impressions.

Things come up. Issues, worries, thoughts of all sorts and sizes eek up into the surface of the mind, some incredibly insignificant and others quite significant, each attempting to derail practice.

Today was one of those days for me, where the practice wrestles with this comedy of the mind. The breath, still steady and easy regardless, is a laugh track as stuff bubbles up. But even this has its purpose.

Yoga, union, is a goal. But yoga is also a process. And today I observed this process of emptying pots, of cleaning house, the house of the mind and the body. This is the process of letting go and of creation, emptying to make space for the new.

Photo: Pottery at one of the Ateliers at the Darb 1718 compound in Old Cairo. Watch for announcements, will be holding ashtanga and inner dance space there soon!

Practice is a Mirror

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Practice is a Mirror

The yoga practice is a mirror. Look into it. See what it reflects back at you. Use it as the powerful tool that it is to observe yourself, use it to discern the difference between the whirlings of the mind and the sweet center of you that is unchanging.

Photo: Yara in purvatanasana in La Zone, Maadi. Ashtanga Yoga Egypt runs Sun/Mon//Wed/Thurs mysore classes 7-10am and Friday 4pm Led in November.

Your Ashtanga Practice

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Your Ashtanga Practice

Your practice is your own. You breathe at your own pace, you move according to your own range of motion. You decide the effort you put in.

You develop your own sense of independence, cultivating your body-mind-breath as a source of personal power.

The most important thing is to show up, is to be present.

Photo: Independent self-paced practice, Ashtanga Yoga Egypt, Mysore class in La Zone, Maadi.

Inner Dance & Slippers for Storm Victims

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CLICK FOR EVENT DETAILS: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=708375682507850&set=oa.408156165978604&type=1

Haiyan, one of the strongest storms to make landfall, may have passed the Philippines, but the devastation it left in its wake is just heart-breaking.

I feel very blessed that my family in Manila are safe. And that Boracay Island and the many friends who live there have been spared despite being on the projected path of the storm.

Unfortunately, other parts of the Visayas region has not been so lucky. The death toll is still rising. Many thousands have lost their homes and all their belongings, they are without food and basic resources.

It is so inspiring to see so many organizations and individuals mobilizing good intentions into true acts of love. Been thinking of how to help from Cairo. A very reliable and dear friend is raising money to buy a 1000 slippers for storm victims who have lost everything.

So in the interest of helping people stand, walk and restart their lives in this small and simple way, I am going to donate the proceeds of the first Inner Dance offering here in Cairo to slippers for storm victims. Hoping that there will be more opportunities to share and raise funds.

Inner Dance is a healing modality and a moving meditation coming from the Philippines.

I look forward to sharing it this Thursday at Shanti Yoga Cairo (SYC), Heliopolis, 7:30pm.

Take Space and Practice

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Take Space and Practice

I entered into the yoga shala (Ashtanga Yoga Cairo) this evening to find all the early starters taking a moment, all of them sitting and breathing. Ok, it’s that kind of day then…

It made me smile to watch them. It’s beautiful to see yoga in action. Most of the time, we think of yoga as making postures, with ashtanga particularly as movement in space. But this, this is the real thing. The collective, intuitively breathing, knowing that this is what is needed.

This is not a prelude to practice but a part of the great wide open expanse that is practice.