Aaah, It's over ~ Om Mani Padme Hum.
गणेशा
Yes. And I can not believe it. I'm here in Singapore. Sitting on my couch. After a day's work and a yoga class. And I'm dazed. Overwhelmed by all these shiny lights. Still adjusting, it's so hard, only because a huge part of me doesn't want to adjust to this 'reality'. So since I'm at the end, I 'll have to talk about the last week in reverse.
My friend Andrea was here for a day. She arrived really late on Friday night, it was Saturday early morning rather. I had class on Saturday, so she went and did an art class (her painting is beautiful) and we had dinner at this beautiful place : Fair Warung Bale, which is a actually run by a youth foundation and the food was lovely, we treated ourselves to two lovely cheesecakes at Anomali after that. And walked back slowly enjoying the streets of Ubud. She left at 8 AM on Sunday and I said bye to her before heading out to class at 6. On Sunday, we did a practice teaching session, where all 30 of us had to teach one by one. To the rest 29. Emily, built a sequence, and each of us had one asana. And had to go up from our mats to teach when it was our turn. I was # 3 and my pose was a simple warm up : windshield wiper. Simple enough, but daunting nevertheless, it was the first time we were teaching the whole group together. Just seeing so many people in front of you is overwhelming. And then finding your voice and teaching them, is another deal. But i did well, I think. Haha. I confused left and right, but otherwise I did pretty ok.
I don't think I have spoken about a proper class we led from start to finish on Friday. We had to prepare a 25 min sequence with an opening, middle and ending. I decided to do Yin. As many many many posts on this blog are proof, I love yin. And it has a lot to do with having lovely teachers, but also learning how to practice it safely and painlessly. It's very synonymous with letting go and learning how to be. When Emily told us on Thursday that we had to prepare for a 20 min class for Friday and we would be split into groups of 4, I wasn't nervous. I almost did a vinyasa heavy class. But that night a couple of us went out for dinner to this India place : Queen's, it was pretty good actually. Not 100% authentic, but good for Ubud. I decided to have a mysore masala dosa ! :) Would've definitely gone for a chicken curry had I been eating meat! And so we discussed what we were planning to do the next day, what kind of class and what our theme would be and that's where I decided that I'm going to Yin it!
I got back home and started to write and introduce the class to the concept of Yin and the things they should keep in mind, about a yin practice. And then I went onto write about my theme and i didn't even stop to think for a second, my theme just flowed from within and I saw myself writing : "What is this world if full of care we have no time to stand and stare." And so that was my theme, to slow down in life, to take a step back and just be. It happened to fit in very nicely with a yin practice, because Yin, is about just being, not rushing to reach somewhere or using muscular energy to get into a particular 'expression' of the pose. The sequence was very simple, Balasana or child's pose, Badhakonasana or butterfly, dragonfly or straddle in yin, salambha bhujangasana or sphinx going into seal, and ending with supta matsyendrasana or reclining twist. I shared what William shared with us in Pure about shavasana and quoted Pattabhi Jois saying shavasana was to experience a small death everyday and ended with the quote again.
My group was Andra, Yoska, Nathalie. And I went last because mine was a yin class, so perfect for winding down. And I was confident when I got off my mat to go take the teacher's seat, but as soon as I sat down, I was suddenly nervous and lost my plot for a few minutes, but after I spoke about my theme, I was alright again. Initial nervousness. The feedback I got was good, they appreciated that I had prepared well, and had a thorough class which was well thought out and they could see the love of yin. But the area of improvement was that I needed to relax, and not get worried about not sticking to the script. And that when i spoke naturally they could sense it being relaxed and calm VS when I consulted my notes. Really good points and I kept them in mind for my final exam class. Overall the group did very well, all of us had many strong points, but a few suggestions here and there to improve and it was helpful to get that feedback from your peers.
After that class I decided to do Yin for my final exam as well. I just had to :)
There was this beautiful Rumi quote on our white board that had a different quote everyday, and it was placed outside the entrance to our shala :
"What is the body? That shadow of the shadow of you love, that somehow contains the entire universe."
Andrea said us on Sunday, meditation is like meeting an old friend and your deepest self is the friend who is always by your side, you can reach out to him/her anytime anywhere. And the experience of meditation should feel soft like opening your arms to hold that friend. It is after after all the practice of filling the body with love. There's this other beautiful thing he said, that Hridaya or your spiritual heart is your jewelry box : that contains all your precious things. It's a like cave, dark at first, but when you light it up, you see all kinds of jewels.
हृदय (Hridaya) is often confused as the physical heart that regulates the blood circulation. Hridaya can be broken down to hrid (center) and ayam (this). I read something very beautiful about hridaya that I'd like to remember and so i'm sharing it here:
"Just as there is a cosmic center from which the whole universe arises and has it's being and functions with the power or the directing energy emanating therefrom, so also there is a center within the frame of the physical body wherein we have our being. This center in the human body is in no way different from the cosmic center. IT is this center is us that is called the hridaya, the seat of pure consciousness, realized as Existence, Knowledge and Bliss. This is really what we call the seat of God in us.
Through mediation you can learn to find the Self in the cave of this heart."
Andrea is italian and he has a beautiful italian way of teaching things. He can say the most profound things in the most adorable ways. He was talking to us about how doing things in a repetitive manner leads to us closing our discriminative awareness and so he said " Get a coffee in a new cafe everyday" :)
I had good days and really good days. And then I had bad days and really bad days. Emotionally, there was so much going on. You're not only open and receptive to your own stuff, but you are also in close proximity with 29 other people, who are going through their own things. It can be very overwhelming. Very.
One day we had a class with Tara Judelle and she led a very interesting classes where she connected every asana and every movement to the lungs and heart. Lungs more specifically. And before she started classes she asked us to observe the three parts of the lungs, upper, middle and lower, and breathe into those specific parts. It was interesting, to see the affect of doing that on the left side first and noticing the difference between that and the unaffected right part and then balancing the two sides with working on the right side as well. And she used that as the theme of her class.
What i really liked was how she asked us to wrap out left lungs over the heart as we twisted to parivrtta anjaneyasana on our right side. It was an interesting way to approach the twist from your hips concept in this asana.
She led a beautiful class, what a great teacher, such infectious energy and a fun way of teaching. Definitely going to follow her on Yoga Glo.
Monday was relatively quiet. We just had our morning meditation, pranayama, asana practice and a session with Mitchell, our last one. And then the Business of Yoga with Emily, which was pretty interesting. She spoke to us about our certification, how studios work, how to market yourself as a teacher, how to not feel bad about taking money, how to teach as much as we can, and the different ways we can teach in. Very exciting interesting stuff. I need to build a website as a part of that class. Should get around to doing it this weekend.
I'll end this post by sharing a Tibetan mantra : Om Mani Padme Hum. It's Sanskrit, Mani means jewels or beads and Padme is the lotus flower. There are many interpretations of this mantra, and i personally want to learn more about it and will mostly do a post only on it sometime soon. But what Emily shared with us was that the mantra refers to the three jewels within the lotus flower and that at the end of the day these are all that matter in life : Kula or community (i need to write more about kula in this blog), Dharma (in this context can be interpreted as generosity) and Buddha.
नमस्ते
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