….and I struggle with it.  What’s the best path for me?  Am I on it?  Have I found it?  When will I find my teacher?  I think I found my teacher, how do I know this is it?  Will this be my teacher always, or will he change?  It’s worse than selecting a man and wondering if I should marry.

So, I breathe.  I practice.  I calm the mind chatter.  I seek.  I study.  I learn.  I question.

I find myself at Planet Yoga.  Suddenly, the questions become whispers.  I find myself not even hearing them most of the time.  I learn to teach differently – from deep within, not from the teacher role I play.  All the styles, all the beliefs, all the travels, all the roads blend into one.  I don’t have to distinguish, discern, figure out.  I can just teach to the student in front of me from deep within – like I have know this student for many life times and I recognize this student as I recognize myself.  The Planet Yoga Method did this for me.

How?  I can’t describe it.  It has to be experienced.  Like love.  Like sunshine.  Like water.

Join us and see what shows up for you out of your experience with Planet Yoga.

Urban Flow Yoga (click to watch the video)

Rusty’s class this morning was full of love, full of devotion – devotion to his students, the practice, his teachers, the teachers that make his team, our own individual god. I return the devotion and post this beautiful short film about his vision.

Namaste

KPS

The Earth Training Weekend with Planet Yoga transforms your understanding of yoga in such a way that you can apply this new understanding to any class and any teacher.  You really learn to look at the individual body in each individual pose and then how that translates into your own unique body.  It is a weekend geared toward learning to teach and growing your own practice.

I often hear from new teachers that becoming a teacher is taking away from their personal practice.  I most definitely went through this experience and it was disheartening.  I chose to teach yoga because I loved to practice yoga, yet I was practicing with less focus – always attempting to translate what I was experiencing into a language for my students.  The Earth Weekend was the first teacher training I attended that really focused on both.  I had major breakthroughs in my own personal practice and I was able to see in many other bodies how to guide my individual students toward their own breakthroughs.

For me, it was the Key Positioning Skills (KPS) specifically that provided me with that language.  I’ve said before that the KPS’s are like anatomy in the form of poetry.  By describing the physical position of the body in relation to another part of that same body, the students is left with a level of inquiry that exists when interpreting a poem.  These skills provide people with the freedom to apply the instructional verses to their own bodies, constantly changing and constantly up for reassessment.  They speak specifically to what is happening in the individual, not what is happening in a typical body.  My teaching, as a result has become much more refined and much less generic – which is often a challenge in a group class.  Check out our videos featuring the Planet Yoga Method Key Positioning Skills and write me a comment – tell me what you think.  Imagine you and a group of other teachers practicing and viewing these alignment skills over the course of 3 days.  The weekend will transform the way you teach and practice!

my Earth training

To bring it back to the picture of Los Angeles that I created in the beginning of this post, I find that the Planet Yoga Method has helped me sort through all the different styles and techniques of instruction out there.  I’m finding that what wasn’t working for me before, is now working, all as a result of a new perspective.  Yet all the prior study only enhanced my understanding of the Planet Yoga Method just as any future training I experience will also be enhanced by what I learned at my Earth Weekend.  I hope to see you all at an Earth Weekend so I can share with you what has been a powerful addition to my own yoga education.

It’s a strange word to say.  My sister, Marla, and I get stuck on it every time.  We know it as a German word and are thus inclined to pronounce it as such.  I think we’re the only ones.  So in attempt to fit in but still stay true to our roots, we end up stumbling and stuttering.  But here we are……

morning yoga

It’s lovely. It’s the desert.  It’s warm and dry and sunny.

We spent our first few hours here in Squaw Valley with Rusty. He made sure we wouldn’t forget about him the rest of the weekend – his spirit taking up residence in our hamstrings.  I mean really, Rusty, I love you always and don’t need to reminded of you every step I take and every forward bend I fold into.  Wince….

The evening ended with red wine and Pretty Lights.  If Rusty dwells in my hamstrings today, Pretty Lights dwells in my heart.

I’ve got 2 days left.  I wonder who will possess me next….

I asked for strength, I was given challenges to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom, I was given problems to solve.

I asked for prosperity, I was given a brain to work.

I asked for courage, I was given danger to overcome.

I asked for love, I was given troubled people to help.

I asked for favors, I was given opportunities.

I recieved nothing I wanted, I recieved everything I needed.

-Unknown

Clinging to life, flowing by it’s own potency [due to past experience] exists even in the wise.

It is not my intent, here in this blog to rephrase Satchinanda’s comments, or anyone else’s commments.  It is also not my intent to give profound insights as I don’t have many of those.  I am forever a student of yoga and would simply like to start a conversation with you so that I may continue to learn.  So, what surprised me most in this sutra is parenthetical  phrase – due to past experience.  What exactly does past experience have to do with fear of dying?  What memories exist in our minds that we may not recognize or be present to that have us gripping to our lives?  Is that related to our Western obsession with our bodies, the material, the Prakriti? If we create a clearing, move past that and can agree that death may be celebrated, from where does the clinging emerge?

Have a beautiful Sunday.  I have some yoga to practice, a wonderful meal to enjoy that was prepared for me, luggage to pack, and an incredible man to embrace later this evening.  I guess I can see why I would cling to this life. 

I’m at a retreat center (yoga related, of course) and find myself up earlier than anyone else.  I have a bit of a cold (which always makes me feel creative and affectionate…okay needy) and I had the desire to connect.  As 2010 reveals itself to me, I find myself with an intense travel schedule, sometimes 8 weekends in a row without a break.  It might be nice to start a blog highlighting the places I visit, the amazing people I encounter, and the conversations we share. 

Now that is an idea that moves me……

new friends

I’m traveling with Yoga Fit this summer.  This time in Hood River is incredible.  I’m with 10 other women living in an Ashram.  The sense of community we have created and the love and nuturing we offer is astounding.  Our backgrounds are all wildly different and in our regular lives, we may have never had the opportunity to know each other.

Here is what seemed popular from last night’s class:

Inside by Wade Imre Morissette

Om Namo Naryana by Manish Vyas

Antare Mandire by Rasa

Om Namo Shivaya by Donna de Lory

Have a fab weekend.

In the Gita Krishna says “All actions are done in all cases by the gunas (qualities) of prakriti (nature).  He whose mind is deluded through egoism thinks I am the doer.” 

The ego develops from the belief that we have free will.

The ego produces suffering.

The traditional Ashtanga sequence is the surrender of free will.