practice video posting

I plan to post video blogs from india... had to send a practice vid to make sure I know what i am doing.  in the meantime, check out a few ashtanga advanced series a postures...  and... an instruction video on backbending!

move sweat breathe let it go

Rough practice on the mat today... and it's got me thinking - why do we do this to ourselves?  I believe the yoga practice - asana, pranayama, meditation practices, everything - is there to support, improve, challenge and inform one's life.  It is a framework within which we develop self-awareness, it is also the space where we create and gain strength in new patterns, thoughts, behaviors.  So, at a time in my life where I am feeling pulled in many directions, with many demands and expectations made of my time, energy, attention, heart and mind - what on earth do I have left to give to my yoga?  I unroll my mat in the shala intending to just move, just move through the asanas, move the breath, move prana and let the yoga be something that feels good.  Seems my intention was not in alignment with that of the universe, or my teacher.  I was asked to go in, deeper, do more, more strength, more effort, more attention, connection, stability.  Give more to my yoga.  Dang! I wanted the yoga to give to me today and instead it is demanding more of me.  I broke down - I kept practicing, my body was fine, my energy was fine.  It was my heart and mind that resisted.  "I don't want to, can't I just take it easy?  I don't have any more strength, I am not stable.  I'm a mess"  Fighting even as I am doing doing doing.  And then another voice - "This is where you are supposed to work it out."  The rest of the time, out there in the real world - doing doing doing - everything is fine, I can handle it, I am strong.  Then it crashes into you on the mat - total and complete honesty.  No more veils of denial, bravado, pride.  The rawness of life experience is there right there and maybe that is where you are supposed to feel it and face it and move through it.  Feeling week and floppy, mentally, emotionally resistant but doing anyway. Be a mess but feel it honestly, acknowledge what it means and do the practice because it is safe, it is the space to develop awareness and strengthen new ways of being.  Out in the real world may be where it is about what is happening around you, outside of you.  But in your yoga practice it is about what is happening within.