yogascittavrtti nirodha

im finally on the recovery upswing, spent all day saturday and most of sunday sleeping and watching football. i think i am emotionally too weak of a person to watch too much of it though... i end up getting all riled up. as lauren pointed out, if the team i want to win loses, i get really upset, and if they win, then i start to feel bad for the other team and how upset they must be. its all very complicated really :). however, the drama between ivory coast and brazil yesterday was rather exciting, as was the new zealand tie!

L and i finally went to the big grocery store, waitrose; have to say, london grocery stores are pretty much exactly the same as american ones except the fact that a. they do not have coconut milk icecream (although jason, they do have goat’s milk icecream!), and b. the carts are much nicer and go side to side as easily as forwards and backwards. preeetty exciting!

last night i took class with Amme, who was fabulous: if you’re ever in london definitely check her out. she’s an American who did the Forrest Advanced TT and studied at yogaTree in SF. the practice was well rounded, but what stood out was her sweet blend of being down to earth while simultaneously really fierce.

about halfway through practice i had this realization: part of the responsibility of all of my rudimentary experiences thus far with yoga here in london may actually lay in the hands of the london yogis themselves rather than with the teachers. up until then i had been focusing mainly on what the teachers could have done differently- and while this still may apply- it may also be that they have tried to push the envelope with more challenging and dynamic (out of the box, if you will) classes and been poorly received. and, in the end, it doesn’t matter how exceptional your classes are; if no one is coming to them, something needs to change.

this brings up a discussion i had a bit ago with sunny hitt (and possibly one or two other wed AM yogis @ SBY) about gym yoga versus studio yoga, as well as the challenge of “all levels”; what is the balance between teaching what you want and teaching that the students want? when the two line up perfectly, fantastic. however in my experience, more often than not, some sort of compromise is required. this doesn't mean i stop teaching my truth, but rather i've learned to teach with the balance of self-honesty with what the students can/are willing to hear and do.

when i first started teaching, i wouldn’t teach corework (even though it is, in my eyes, one of the most critical pieces of practice) or even chant (which i have always truly loved, bad singer or not!) because the idea of having a class glare at me and roll their eyes was too much (although thanks to Ana and Mary Kathryn Stevens i now do both freely). then i spent a while on the other end of the spectrum teaching inversions and core as the focus of nearly every class because that was exactly where i was at in my practice.

i found that ultimately, neither one actually served me or my students. attempting to cater to what students think they want- which they almost never know anyways- doesn’t break patterns (david vendetti’s ability to get a gym buff to love kundalini meditation is a perfect example!), and teaching only one realm of practice- inversions, for instance- left out the balance that allows me the practice i have today.

it’s a fine line to walk, but as a teacher i'm not doing my job unless i have successfully tried to communicate with and cater to my students’ needs (beyond ego). and as students, we won’t like a teacher unless they are being true to their practice and passion. so i guess that’s the trick then, be honest enough and real enough to see beyond both parties’ egos and teach what will ultimately bring us all deeper within.

ys2ch1: yogascittavrtti nirodha...yoga is the practice of moving beyond the likes, dislikes, egos, distractions and fluctuations to find the moments of truth and breath and thus the capacity for change and shift.