breathing into infinity
As you know I’ve been suffering from a serious bout of flu, many thanks to Sean and Kinga for taking over the classes! One more onion juice should sort me out, but don’t think I’ll quite be ready by tomorrow, so no three hour class this week Saturday, just a normal class taught by Sean. Maybe next week, but I’ll let you know.
Blessings, B)
Another long weekend… don’t you just love April! Time to relax or get busy doing the stuff you normally don’t have time to do.
Free your body from its limitations, your mind from being entangled in your body, and your soul from being confused with your ego or mind. Free yourself from your history, discover the freedom in the present moment, free from your mental conditioning. There will be a class on Friday morning, Freedom Day, at 8:30am. Then enjoy the long weekend (no classes) until Wednesday morning, when it’s back to normal routines with a little more contentment.
To make up for lost yoga, there will be a three hour class on Saturday, 5th May 2012, an opportunity to go a little deeper into each posture. Don’t be alarmed at the time, there will be plenty of savasana, loads of breathing, only slightly more postures than normal, and lots of freedom to listen to your body and relax when you need.
Remember to breathe!
Namaste
On Good Friday, 6th April 2012, there will be a class in the morning, so come for a great start to your long weekend! There will not be a class on Saturday morning or on Monday (morning & evening). The next class will be on Tuesday.
Have a fantastic long weekend!
Happy Easter!
Namaste, B)
PS. Let me know if you’re looking for a yoga mat.
On Wednesday, 21 March 2012, Human Rights Day, there will be a class in the morning at 8:30am to 10am, but no evening class. So rise early, start the day with yoga session and walk tall human!
For all those yogi’s and yogini’s who love to experience something new to expand their awareness of yoga, and to recommit to their personal practice and yoga lifestyle, there is a ‘Traditional Tantra Yoga’ workshop happening at Yoga Shala this weekend. Check out the poster for more details.
The Yoga Teacher’s Training Course has been delayed by the Universe for Universal reasons. So we will only be starting in April. If you’re the cause of the Universal delay, please own up 
For more details (there is a wee time gap for you to slip in), click here.
Also remember, we have a Breathing & Meditation Course coming up in May, especially for those who are struggling to start their meditation practice. It is so amazing to start meditating in a group, the collective energy enhances your ability to still the mind and inspires a personal practice. It is also for sports people who would like to expand their lung capacity (more oxygen available), remain calm under pressure and react quicker with better accuracy. And very important for those with chronic illness or stress. Many studies confirm meditation improves health! This course is free to all who have done the course before – come for the whole course or any particular day for specific subject or meditation.
Namaste,
B)
Ever get stuck with the same thought racing around your mind-track? Sound like a stuck record that’s lost its melody, dropped down in the depths of an uncreative abyss? Ever noticed similar situations, patterns of behaviour, plaguing your life?
Here are a few suggestions to help you shift:
Ustranasana (Camel)
This posture is particularly useful to athletes as it stretches the quadriceps (functioning as hip flexors) and lengthens the stride.
It has been a very positive start for most in the year of the End of the World. So if we continue along this path we should anniliate the End, and instead create a huge Beginning! Are we to be afraid? I don’t think so. You can only be afraid if you constantly spend your ‘time’ in the future. Be here Now, and everything will work out the way it should.
If you know of any one in the need of a Beginning, please suggest they join the Beginners Yoga Course in March. A wonderful opportunity to bring body, mind and spirit back into balance; de-stress; and develop mental clarity and harmony in your personal world.
For those just past the beginning and want to explore what happens next after being a little more comfortable in the physical body, may I suggest the Breathing & Meditation Course in May. It is also highly recommended for professional athletes, divers, chronic dis-ease and stress sufferers, and those who feel a compelling need to search Within. For those who want to be immersed in the Inward Journey, and who would like to share yoga with their friends and the world, I’ll be doing a Teachers’ Training Course starting in March (email me for more details).
There are more students in need of yoga mats, so I would like to place another order soon. Unfortunately, due to the toll road drama in Gauteng the price of the mats has gone up to R350 (I’ll also order in batches of five). Here is a pic of the colours to choose:
My life has changed completely as you probably know. My apologies for being not as punctual these days, but with this level of cuteness…
One other thing that I can’t keep to myself is organic food. Health is so important to us yogi’s and yogini’s, and health is largely due to what we put in our bodies, as the saying goes: you are what you eat! As a vegetarian, I want to make sure that the vegetables I ingest have all the nutrients they can possibly have and minus all the pesticides and modified genes. So, there is a fantastic service in PE called Organic Footprints. You order your organic vegetables online on a Sunday or Tuesday and get fresh-picked, tasty vegetables on Tuesday or Thursday. Nothing stays on shelves until they’re bought, harvesting is based on orders! So get clicking and munching: www.organicfootprints.co.za.
Remember to breathe!
Namaste, B)
PS. Happy valentines are welcome to bring their valentines to yoga tomorrow evening at no extra charge.
Contentment is a wonderful tool to help keep yourself in the present moment. Contentment is about being okay with everything in your life as it is, not projecting your happiness into the future, placing conditions on your happiness like earning a particular salary, being in a romantic relationship with the perfect ‘Someone’, having solved all family dramas and brought them around to your way of thinking, having the right government or knowing the banksters are in jail. Everything changes, so what would make you happy today, might not be what makes you happy tomorrow. Base your happiness on something that is Real, Permanent and Eternal.
Santosha, the Sanskrit word for ‘contentment’, is one of the niyamas in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (2:42): ‘Unexcelled happiness comes from the practice of contentment.’ When happiness doesn’t depend on physical conditions or external circumstances which are always subject to change, it becomes the dominant state of being. When the mind is busy analyzing the past or projecting into the future, happiness is limited to those thoughts; thoughts change so happiness is fleeting.
What is Real, Permanent and Eternal? God, sure, but that is a loaded word, generally based on a religion or belief system (which can change), but let it be used in the context of omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent; and the Creator being, the One who Is before Creation and after Dissolution. Or perhaps more tangibly, the awareness of the ‘space’ behind thoughts, the substratum from which thoughts arise, or the awareness of existence that is there inbetween the thoughts. The awareness that is the witness to your thoughts, actions and existence.
The most efficient method of enhancing that awareness is meditation, sitting still, observing all the mind stuff (chitta vritti) and identifying with the Ever-Present Witness. And yet without contentment meditation becomes difficult as the mind is too busy dealing with the discontent.
So be happy for no reason! Smile at the infinite flux of atoms and subatomic particles arranging into transient forms. Enjoy the dream. Be content that you’re so much more than you think!
Talk to anyone who has done a consistent yoga practice for even a few months and they will wax lyrical about the benefits of yoga. The scientific community is now waking to that subjective opinion and are doing their own research. This research has been going on for a few years now and many studies have come to fruition.
Menopause:
The journal Menopause reported a recent study which compared women who did no therapy to those you did stretching exercises and those who did two classes of yoga per week (including strong and fast breathing, I presume bhastrika and kapalabhati). The study seems a little incomplete as there is no comparison between the ladies who did stretching and those that did the yoga classes. However, those who did yoga for four months reported fewer problems (hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, irritability & insomnia) compared to those who did nothing, which is fantastic as hormone replacement treatments come with risks of heart disease, stroke and breast cancer according to a Women’s Health Initiative study (2002), and homeopathic treatments have been a disappointment according to the North American Menopause Society. There was a significant improvement for insomnia.
Yoga probably works by reducing stress levels and limiting the excess of the sympathetic nervous systems ‘flight or fight’ response. There is no information about which poses they did. However, I’ve got great feedback from ladies doing specifically vipariti karani and a general yoga class.
Breast Cancer:
A study on women with metastatic breast cancer conducted in Bangalore, India by the Department of Surgical, Medical and Radiation Oncology found improved psychological states, reduced cortisol levels and an increase in the natural killer cells after three months of yoga. More about the study here.
Cancer-related fatigue, depression and stress levels were significantly improved according to this study. The women did two yoga classes a week. Regular yoga classes is the key to experiencing benefit.
As I come across more relevant studies, I’ll add them to these blogposts.
If you’ve never done yoga before, you are welcome to the next Anantam Yoga’s Yoga Course for Beginners, or jump in the deep end and come to a class today.
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