When Did You first Teach Someone Else Yoga?

Just like the ass that I am...I did it at first as if I were playing Simon says...it turned into two large full grown men splayed out on a friends living room floor. It was 1990 and I'd met a husband of a travelling yoga teacher. He described this awesome sounding career, and he was so proud of her...you rarely see a strong cool man truly in love so that moment stuck with me...a seed was planted...so there I was that same week trying my hand...I got as far as floor series and at some point they both looked so cute and funny I couldn't stop laughing. I only had visuals of postures so I can't imagine all I said to get em down like that....oh ya, I forgot, important factor of youthful beauty....whatever it takes to help people take the step...but too often yoga classes have students for the worst superficial reasons....

I just sprained my foot walking....try explaining that to some hot young leggy former gymnast yoga teacher...people come...they have their little gatherings...and hold each other hostage for support....fake hatha period....

YaRight

I watched a mother take photos of her daughter posing. A very beautiful teenage girl doing yoga in a way she could injure herself. The actress playing the part of the yoga teacher, molded the girls body as she wanted to see it in a yoga photo calendar or something...just epidomized everything that's wrong with so much exploitation of yoga to make money and pretend otherwise. I mean usually it's all good and there's nothing wrong with making money....but at the unconscious, risk of injuring a child....ibmake a point of saying so because of the cold way the mother showed me her ostracizing gossipy stink eye treatment for no apparent reason.

I'd walked in to prepare room for my class and they politely asked me if I minded if they took some photos...I said not at all of course. But right away the mother was subtly rude and snappy when I said from across the room "breath!" to her daughter while struggling with her balance...then I made the mistake of suggesting a camera trick...in other words as I was simply being friendly welcoming and helpful, the woman instatnly became annoyed....I was flumoxxed so I slid down to her floor level and politely quietly asked "do we know each other?" she had just rolled her eyes....she was so mean she made me feel so sad. In 22 years I've never taken a class that wasn't Bikram that mattered...the young girls experience was being reduced to beauty and modern dance....ibmean she looked like she was modelli g NOT doing hatha yoga...a joke really...and I only say that publicly in reaction to her wintry disresect. I don't know her name, and don't care to know - but do want to expose adult bullying for what it is. Ya baby! Let's do yoga! Let's fix the world with yoga. For real

oh ya...the girl did these art nouveau statue made up posture ( (all for the camera-while emoting with her eyes..."what other poses are there?" she asked her teacher after doing maybe 4....

I mean I can stand back and let it be ...but...damn...i'm so tired of being victimized by peoples gossip. Do you mind if I say that? Is it ok to speak? To express? To say who you really are? A nonpasteurized living breathing being with flaws and perfection. I'm not the best Bikram teacher on the planet by any means...but I am 200,000 times better a yoga teacher than any barnes and noble weekends in tuckahoe girl scout troop yoga alliance...

Best of all about Bikram- I can be totally screwed up in so many ways and yet never falter providing the workout people come for with true hatha yoga...lol playing khrishna das doesn't make your class hatha yoga-especially when you mix it with Marshall Tucker lol...I mean can't u see is a gorgeous old time favorite...but the filler? to distract from all the holes? All u don't know?

So who's listening? Who's at the party ? 20 hits a day but a bust? Reveal yourselves oh witches Arthur Miller wrote about.

Yoga and Sadness

To cure my depression for 90 minutes at least, all I have to do is do the Bikram sequence in my head. The problem is that's just as, if not even more difficult than practicing it physically. Knowing this, being aware of this is a step, but actually doing it? To be honest I never actually have tried, but I guess now I'll have to. Maybe Im onto something. If not Im dead. The toll not doing the yoga takes on my body is comparable to a rapid deterioration/slow death. It's as if the yoga is a magic pill. Can you imagine knowing someone who for years couldn't loose weight and then suddenly the system of yoga you were selling worked. In just 4 months they lost 54 pounds. Can you imagine then blocking them? What kind of person would suddenly ban someone from a self help group that had saved their life? No exaggeration the owner of Bikram Yorktown did that to me and a lot worse. After friends and family paid around $12,000 for my Bikram Yoga College training she actively campaigned and telephoned to stain my career before I even got started. Bad enough to interfere in my ability to work (by going as far as filing bogus police reports (callthepolice.com) but purely worse evil she stopped me from being allowed to practice. Guess who put on 40 pounds in 3 months, and so it has been for the past 4 years, brutalized indirectly by this selfish self serving woman. who is now amassing a fortune enough to own 2 studios. Did I mentione I was her studio's very FIRST client.

Oh but I still see the light with the yoga...shed the light, one day shed the pounds...lets go see if I can shed that depression. goodbye cruel world

WORDS AND LIFE

Its ridiculous to not take advantage of getting truly ugly online. The place where we can spare blood being shed. Anyone who would stan din the way of the obvious is just a chronic secret hider. Little ones big ones, theyre the undoing. The cancer. Terms like "cyberbullying" are coined and made current Im sure by the powers that be...and I have to chnage course here and say...."Go Powers that Be! I just hope you know what youre doing. For all of our sakes."

The CBS report on "Yoga For Evwebody" was disappointing as expected. Always this need to pasteurize and make safe from the truth...People talk about "Authentic Self" but only to the point everyone can feel kinda safe...and hey thats ok! Whats wrong with that? Nothing. Thats what life is about. Conscious time enjoying every bit.

But there's more than war in the air. Yoga isnt about pretending things away....some would argue it is and in fact I even believe it can be....but that coems from still risking the mess....the safe hypocritical backwards way people lie about hurting or even destroying each other? There it lies...the fix. The challenge is recognizing how we lie to ourselves. Keeping it focused on simply that? Might be all thats required for that miracle. You think you know how to prey? Was it your dirty mind that needed to see the blood so you could feed your families with words?

Happy Easter Everyone.

Bikram yoga in that scrumptously hot room, massaging my muscles as I drop a pound of water weight which feels like 20 pounds of pressure off my breaking joints....thats my simple one thing I need to do to feel amazing in my life....but as I get older I still wonder if the restorative effects are as magical. My body feel slike it is dying. As the room heats up with more summer heat I count on creating that life saving yoga....ya people watch me die off....do I have a christ complex? Poepl ethink I want to argue wjen all I want to do is silently stretch in the routine...thats I spent a small fortune to invest in doing-sharing it with others...like a starbucks on every corner is this yoga..Can you imagine people stopping you from achieving your health? The fact that that goes on deserves serious thought

Yoga for Everyone

Looking forward to the segment on CBS News at 11pm.

Tight Rope Walker

I'm ashamed to admit I only did half class today. Having trouble still trying to process emotionally the fact that I've never been more abused by people in my life than I have by yoga teachers. And I've been raped. I'd always heard musicians referred to as the lowest of the low...I think because yoga is the last place one would expect to find petty spiteful sabotage- that's what makes it worse.

The Practicality of Bikram

The 60 Day Challenge rules allow for a missed class to be made up the next day (double practice). So I fell off the yoga wagon last night I'm ashamed to say, and couldn't get it together until this morning to practice. It was amazing to watch the food triggers kick in after an emotional conversation on the phone last night, As soon as I hung up I started eating like the food junkie that I am...at least Im recognizing it (?) My stomach was so bloated I couldnt get my head around practice....I thought a public daily journal might help keep me focussed...we'll see. Its all in the mind. I eat for the wrong reasons because the world is full of lots of people doing lots of things every second for the wrong reason, and like any old trickle down butterfly affect...we're all interconnected, whether we like it or not...I feel like Im swiming in it...yoga allows me to at least swin in place...a metaphysical treadmill if you will :) Congratulations to Vanessa on finally scoring that new iPhone. Try MyFit first.

Yoga and Singing

Singing is like the weight lifting of breathing. It can be show offy and it can be hypnotic, but it's the easiest tool for touching in with breath, I believe this is why Bikram incorporates music. He appears to be creating a schtick at times, to make us laugh, again laughter being the heavyweight of breathing....Ive dropped the ball on my yoga, but when 've let them rob me of singing? Forces me to remember where I can still be in control. I have been so depressed these past few months Ive gotten in touch with an ability to hold my breath forever by stopping my own heart. Thats how I define heartbroken. (Thanks Master Blaine)

But today I will wake up and sing. Maybe only in my heart. But that counts. Forget about the judgements....breath....and there! I've done some yoga today. A little more strength to take a step forward, or backwards if you like. The only thing that counts is consciousness. That's what I practice. Im a mess, but (when allowed)  I'll sharptooth right thru anynody's bs like no tomorrow.  I hate fighting. But it's harder being right most of the time :) When I signed up I had no idea yoga had been turned into a jungle of insane personalities, one worse than the other, politically beating each other up over the rights of 250,000 people all around us, needing to do yoga like their lives depend on it. But instead they see a circus act...circus is ok. But time for real yoga!


More than the postures, and almost as important as the breath is the daily ritual. It only took me about 15 years to do find that.  Pleased to meet you...enough bloga let's do some yoga. 8pm tonight if anyone wants to show.

30 Day Challenge

I had the best practice (for me) last night. It's really hard for me to do a regular daily practice alone. In fact it's almost impossible. I cling to the ritual of Bikram yoga because it doesn't flucuate like I do...it's always there just waiting for me to show up. It wasn't as hot as I like it, and by my own standards my postures were awful, but I reconnected with that thing inside which is what its all about. A vibrationally focussed feeling of kundalini, starting through my spine and then as if all the channels in my body open and alive with magic. Feeling the healing. So subtle yet so powerful. Just staying focussed is what matters most...and what is most difficult...woops...here comes another thought!

I felt focussed and relaxed and really able to meditate. When my mind did wander, I thought about all the different places Ive done class and where I felt the most success. I wanted to try to recreate that in my mind. To bottle it up as they say. Be better able to turn that switch on and count on it.

When I lost over 50 pounds back in 2006 at YogaSpa it only took me about 18 weeks (4.5 months).  As much as I hate to say it, that was the place I had the most consistent success with weightloss. And I think it was mostly because there was no pressure. As I tell people I rolled my fat butt out of bed every single day and drove 30 mins from home and saw instant results. Maybe because the teachers (at the time) just left me alone to do the best I could bring to it on any given day. My Bikram training was of course best, and in fact sort of like that, but only because there are so many people...Bikram hinself has a way of pulling strength out of me I didnt know I had, even when I was feeling injured, and a few of his senior teachers are like that-truly the best workout of on the planet....but that doesnt go for all...

Anyway, I started my own 30 day challenge Sunday....good luck to me :)

Too Many Blogs Not Enuff Yoga

Daily pratice is the goal....I promised myself I'd be doing class at 7:30. Will I make it? We shall see. It's been a rough past few months. Let's talk more later...just setting this up for now L)