Blended Learning

I'm taking a course right now in "Blended Learning." Basically, I'm taking an online course in how to offer online courses. Sounds simple enough. But it's not!

Blended learning is different than just learning something online from watching videos and completing assignments. It involves a mix of learning styles and is actually quite dynamic.

In my work as a yoga teacher, I do most of my teaching face-to-face. However, as a student, especially when it comes to self-study of yogic materials, I do a lot of my studies online. The idea of putting the two together is pretty interesting.

The course I'm taking right now seems like it's really aimed at education professionals - people who are more in the mainstream in teaching organizations like schools and universities. I'm not quite sure where I fit in as a yoga teacher, but it's early days in the course yet.

I like Swami J's site, even though it's pretty dense. He's recently posted a Udemy course, which is also online (and free and you should all take it if you feel so inclined), but it is really a curated experience of some of what he has on his site already. Part of why I like his site so much and can freely recommend and use is materials is because I've met him and studied with him. That's a type of blended learning I think.

I'm still exploring how I'd use these tools, but it's a fun experiment. You can take it too if you like. #BlendKit2014 is also on Twitter.

Oh, Those Chitta Vrittis!

You just gotta love those chitta vrittis, don't you? They're adorable. They even sound adorable. Just try and say it - "chit-ta vrit-tis." Sometimes they get treated like the enemy though like, "we gotta get rid of those chitta vrittis at any cost - let's blast 'em."

Some of you are wondering what a chitta vritti is. Let me briefly explain. Chitta is like the field of your mind where all kinds of thoughts can happen and the vrittis are like the thoughts or the waves that show up. Some of those vrittis are disturbing and some of them aren't. So yogis want to regulate the thoughtwaves or the vrittis so they don't disturb us, so we can do what we want to do and think what we want to think, which for a lot of yogis is nothing itself.

Or we want to concentrate on something or see the truth or experience ourselves, and if there are a bunch of disturbing vrittis in the way or even if they're not that disturbing but they're blocking the view, then we want them toned down or moved aside or even blasted away.

One of the things with the mind is that has a lot in common with the breath, for instance we don't have to think about breathing at all and we can let it do its own thing and we'll get by, however, we can also adjust our breath and enhance certain states (like health - but really I meant states of mind). Same thing with the mind - it will go on and on by itself, but we can also watch it and guide it on purpose, never really getting rid of it, but guiding it. Sometimes we can suspend the breath for periods - we can do that with the mind too - just suspend the thoughts or the vrittis. So the mind and the breath have a lot in common. Both can be monitored and adjusted consciously or they can be left on their own and will function unconsciously.

So if you're in a state where you've noticed your thoughts or your vrittis and they're bothering you or even their existence annoys you, one of the first things you can do is find them adorable rather than objectionable. Just don't be so against them.

The second yoga sutra in Patanjali's yoga sutras is "yoga chitta vritti nirodhaha." Swami J's definition goes like this,

1.2 Yoga is the control (nirodhah, regulation, channeling, mastery, integration, coordination, stilling, quieting, setting aside) of the modifications (gross and subtle thought patterns) of the mind field.
(yogash chitta vritti nirodhah)

and he's got a lot more to say about it all on his website, which I recommend you check out over and over again!

Swami J

I spent a couple of days with Swami J, and by couple of days I mean a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening for a couple of days. I'm going to go back in a couple more days and spend a couple of days as I just described :)

It was refreshing to be with a teacher who obviously knows his stuff, but it is able to impart it in a way that is soothing rather than jarring. Sometime I hear new stuff and I have to filter it and convert it to my internal language, but for most of the time I was with him, it was easy to listen to and fit in with what I already understand. I learned new things as well, but mainly it was new ways of describing things I've learned before, like Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, for instance.

He's really low-key and the ashram is his townhouse, which is a small place near a small mall in a small town in northern Florida, also known as LA (Lower Alabama). He's also all about yoga is not just asana, which is something I appreciate, and that without meditation, we're really not practising. And trying to separate them is untrue, as the term yoga includes meditation, but the way it gets practised in the West at a lot of places, people are basically doing asana classes without the other aspects of yoga.

He offers online classes/conversations to anyone who wants to join in. I haven't tuned in yet, but I plan to when I'm back in Ottawa.