Ahimsa - Non-Violence in Thoughts, Words, and Deeds

One of the first things we start with in yoga is Ahimsa, which means the absence of violence. Naturally, it would seem that we could use this to mean that we don't punch people or kill people. A society that practises ahimsa would for sure not be killing its citizens with capital punishment, for instance. That's sort of a big view. Sure, it's easy not to kill people everyday.

Then we take it down a level, to our words. What would it be like to have the absence of violence in our speech? Would that mean not swearing? Would that mean not yelling? Not yelling at people, again, pretty straightforward. I could not yell at anybody all day. I could even not swear, I'm thinking.  Some days that would be harder than others, of course.

Let's look at our thoughts. What would it be like to have the absence of violence in our thoughts? Does that mean we won't think bad things about other people? Not criticize, even in our minds? Would lightly editing a person be considered a type of violence? Perhaps. What about ourselves? Would having an absence of violence towards ourselves be possible while looking in a mirror in the morning? Could I refrain from thinking negative thoughts about my own plumper, aging self? These are questions only I can answer for myself. My thoughts are my own and don't always get shared.

But the body does vibrate with himsa, or violence, even when we think critical thoughts about ourselves. Just as though we were to take a violent action, the inner realms start to resonate with the frequency of negativity and begin to take on the flavour, even if it's just a hint, of the same spice that brings us violence towards others.

When you start to take a closer look at your life, you'll see that it becomes easy to notice things we think are benign, that are actually causing little sores in our subtle bodies. Sores that can ultimately cause us pain for real. Think about it. What you're thinking about matters a lot. Practising non-violence in actions, speech, and even our thoughts can be done towards others, but also and ultimately even more challenging, towards ourselves.

To explore more, please join us for Living Yoga 1, which starts Tuesday, September 21 and goes for 6  Tuesday evenings in total.

Yoga Teacher as Mother (First Day of School Again)

Today I walked my daughter as far as she'd let me to school. She's so big and so mature and yet she's still a kid, who's learning and growing and who gets nervous on the first day back. Taking her, at her request, as far as she needed me, is my job. In so many ways, that's my job all around.

Taking people, at their request, as far as they need me to.

It touches me to see her vulnerability as well as her excitement. It's an honour to be allowed in to someone's life while they deal with something. No advice needed. No pushing or cajoling. Just being there.

Breathe.

Living Yoga - Next Steps for Yogis

To be honest, living yoga and the yogic principles are not exactly the next steps for yogis, although they are that as well - please come and see my slide show presentation for more details on that - rather, living yoga and the yogic principles come before the place where most people in our society start on the path of yoga. Did that make sense?

We normally start with yoga poses and show up to a class and do this thing called, "yoga," which is really asana practice. Nothing wrong with that at all. It's just not the traditional order and sometimes, sometimes it happens that people do a yoga practice and don't learn much about the rest of yoga. I've heard of this happening!

As a result, learning about the principles of yoga, and a bit of yoga philosophy, often comes after we've already embarked on a yogic practice. Again, nothing wrong here. However, by learning about the yogic principles found in the yamas and niyamas, for instance, our practice of postures can go deeper and connect more with our lives as we live them, creating more alignment and sometimes a sense of purpose and direction, possibly leading to more fulfillment in our days.

Some people practice yoga once a week and I'd even say that's a great thing. Once a week, taking an hour or two to yourself, working on your health, thinking about things that matter, taking a deeper breath - these are all good things! But just like if you were to injure yourself in your practice or doing anything else, a good health care advisor would be more concerned with what you had been doing around that injury. How do you spend most of your time? What's your position like? How's your alignment?

So if you only spend an hour a week working on your alignment, that's great, but for even greater alignment and awareness, come learn and share about the yogic principles and how we're in positions all of the time. Take a look at what our alignment is like in our lives, not just our physical lives, but our relationships and jobs and attitudes, and see if this alignment is working for us or not.

The class will be held in a new location this season as Kat's house will no longer be available as she is moving soon. (Don't worry! She's just going to India to do her usual teaching and then will be readjusting to life in Ottawa given that she's managing an estate in the Laurentians, which hopefully will be the location of some retreats in the new year.) A possible location is at The Hub, which is downtown and I'm a member of. Let me know if you're interested in attending these six evenings. To register, as usual, just get in touch with me or Kat.

Living Yoga 1
Tuesday evenings September 16 - October 21, 7 - 9
Unit 1 of Makata Living Yoga Teacher Training Program
$240

Back to Bikram

Sounds crazy, I know, but I went back to a Bikram class today (which I've done before as you'll find in the link). I first did a Bikram class back in 1992 with Bikram himself when I lived at Kripalu. Since then I've done lots of Bikram classes but today was the first time I've done the "express" class. New favourite thing!

The reason for the Bikram is the location and the time. As I mentioned in my last post, I've given myself some structured work times and I wanted to break it up as well as take advantage of the proximity to a yoga class, which happens to be in the same building, so I really have no excuse not to go, except of course, that it's a Bikram class.

People who don't know yoga, can't really appreciate the difference between a Bikram class and one of the classes I teach, or pretty much just about any other type of yoga class you'd go to. It's a huge difference when you know what's what. A Bikram class requires some things...I'm not going to go into it right here but suffice it to say, I've got a bundle of wet, smelly clothes (and a towel!) with me and I'm figuring out how to jam it all in my backpack with my computer and paperwork and get home on my bike. But it's a nice problem to have. And with the class only lasting an hour, I spent hardly any time wishing the class were over already.

Office Hours or Adminstrationasana

As a yoga teacher it can be easy to avoid administrative tasks. "I am a yoga teacher." But really I'm not just a yoga teacher, I'm self-employed. That involves doing administrative tasks like planning classes, setting up trainings, finding spaces, invoicing clients, paying taxes and other things that don't feel like teaching yoga.

Over the years I've found different ways to get some of the tasks done but I've never really dedicated myself to those tasks. As a result, I may be a good yoga teacher, but sometimes business is "bad." There's nothing wrong at all with the business part of business! I just tend to avoid it.

I'm sitting at the Hub, which is a space where people go to work. People like me, who either work from home or a coffee shop or not at all. And I'm thinking about committing to some office hours. I'm thinking about sitting in an office, that's not at my house, where I will go to get work done. Not yoga poses. Not meditation. But work. Or administration and content creation and blog writing and keeping up with emails and being disciplined about all of that. Feels like it's time for that kind of change.

Living Yoga - it Works!

Living Yoga is working with our own lives using some yoga philosophy. It's like going to a yoga class but instead of lining up our bodies in certain positions, we're lining up parts of our lives in certain positions. And just like a usual yoga class experience, there will be some stretchy times and overall it will feel really good.

These classes will be held over the fall period and are part of our Yoga Teacher Training Program, which is really a Yoga Exploration Program, and is for anyone. No special requirements to come to this class. We usually sit on the floor, but even that is optional and chairs can be provided.

One of the things we take a look at is Ahimsa, or non-violence. What a time to be taking a look at that topic. Believe it or not, that's one of the places yoga starts. Right there. Being non-violent with each other and especially with ourselves. So many of us hold ourselves back or put ourselves in positions that aren't healthy and allow ourselves to be mistreated. Taking a look at how we can open up to a more non-violent way of being is where this class starts.

I hope you'll think about coming and sitting with us for 6 weeks in a row. If you can't make a week, you can join us via Skype or FaceTime!