Samasthiti

If you've been reading this blog, you know my love and gratitude for two teachers who've been instrumental in my yoga journey - who've taught me more than just asanas - Daphne and Anton who started Routes of Yoga   to take their gift of teaching to the world. I've learnt from them to be graceful - to take things slow - to enjoy the process of learning  instead of focusing on the results, to be humble in your achievements and to not let failure and disappointment bog you down (not for too long anyway).  I've had a rough couple of weeks, personally because I want something so badly to happen - and realised very recently that it's probably going to continue going to be a dream - and something that i will have to let go of soon, for my own good. Maintaining the balance between effort and detachment is my theme for living life. A very dear friend of mine, once told me that usually in life between your work and your personal life, there'll always be ups and dow...

Nataraja @ The Practice , Canggu, Bali I love that line. a friend of mine introduced me to it. He came for a yoga session and told me post the class that he feels like he fits well in his skin and clarified that it was a dutch way of saying, he feels good, in a much deeper and wholesome way than : I feel good. Which is a beautiful state of mind and body to be in, but also a lovely thing to hear from your student as a teacher. I feel extremely happy when folks attend my sessions and come back to say that, there's a sense of omg, i did this for them - which is mostly an inflated ego speaking - but there is then a deeper sense of i "enabled" this for them - didn't do it - i helped create an opening or a space that they could move into and it was their choice, it was in their power to bring themselves there. They did it for themselves. Anyway, coming back to the point - fitting well in your skin.  I take that to mean a deep sense on contentment at your presen...

No posts for almost a year and then two in a day :) Well, like I said when you sit down to write and there's so much to give, it flow naturally without you having to think about what the topic of this particular post should be. It's sunday night and as i sit here amazingly sore from my weekend workshop at Pure Asia Square, I am conscious that I need to prepare for my upcoming Monday class. My weekly yoga classes are a little bit more streamlined now : there's a tracking system that makes people accountable for signing up and showing up for class : and makes me accountable for having a class plan in place. The last two years by yoga classes were more or less  let's see who attends and what they need and I'll think of a sequence depending on the needs of the class. But now, I've been asked to teach a vinyasa class - so the style is fixed - but what's not fixed is what i can with it! I've said this many times before, I'm a vinyasa baby : using y...

As always, I am writing on this blog after ages - after too long unfortunately. I would open a new post and not know what to write. I would sit there for inspiration to hit me, for all that I was feeling and experiencing to flow through as words on this white screen - some times it would, and more often than not, it would be too personal to post :) So as always I have multiple saved drafts that I haven't been able to post. My yoga journey has more or less remained stagnant - there are no breakthrough asanas I conquered, simply because I wasn't looking to conquer anything - there was nothing I was working towards with a single minded focus over the last couple of months. My goal is still to get the shirsasana - that I've promised to achieve by the end of this year. But, I've grown more comfortable with what my body can and can not do - I no longer breakdown after a class where yogis in a Vinyasa 2 class jump up and down while I sit on my mat not being able to t...

I was supposed to write about my trip to Sri Lanka, but as always life took over and I never got that. In fact when I opened Samasthiti Nine, I realised, I hadn't even completed writing or posting the draft from January this year. So here goes, a post that sat in my drafts for the first half of this year. In fact William, my teacher at Pure went to to share loads of other good teachings other than the one I speak of in this post, maybe I'll get down to jotting those down here eventually.  It's crazy how everything falls to side sometimes in life right. When I look back at 2015, i started the year off on a good note with the training and from there, everything seemed to go downhill. And every time it showed signs of picking up, it would get a little better before getting a lot worse. And towards the end of it when you think, this is it, I've survived it and i'm still strong, the year seemed to slap me in the face as a leaving present.  In spite of a...

prayers and wishes written on miniature torri gates at the Fushimi-Inari shrine in Kyoto. You know every time I become arrogant about my yoga journey : physical or spiritual, life throws a challenge at me and I'm back to being what I should've been in the first place : humble. If I celebrate and go to town about some cool looking asana I have cracked or have come close to cracking, my knee will start to ache or my tendinitis will re-surface and I'll have to take a step or two back and not go deeper while knowing that I can. Similar with life. This year has been tough. Tougher than the last couple of years for me personally. And each time I thought I was close to getting out of this rut, I would be pulled right back into it. Life had turned from a series of ups and downs to downs and deeper downs and deepest downs. And I'm not exaggerating. At many instances through this year, I literally would lay in bed in the mornings and purposely miss my morning train and henc...

I just returned from a lovely trip to Tokyo and Kyoto. And the trip was everything I needed and so much more. If Bali has a gentle calming effect on me, Kyoto had the more absolute zen vibe to it. When I travel to places, I want to do much more than just tick off the 'must-see' places. Ideally, I'd love to walk around streets or neighbourhoods that aren't frequented by tourists and live like how locals would. And I got to do a lot of that in Kyoto, which also led to me not seeing everything I should have, including the Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavilion temple, which I agree is a very shameful thing to say! But I walked loads, drifted into the woods and followed trails that lead nowhere in particular. Irrespective of sun or rain, I slung my Bourke Street Bakery bag over my shoulder and started the day being super excited about everything that I was going to experience that day. More detailed version and experiences of my trip will most probably feature on my othe...