A Yoga Teacher is Eternally a Student - Kino MacGregor (Video)

Here's a great little video from Kino MacGregor about how yoga teachers are eternally students (or should be). If you're a yoga teacher - remember to refill your inspiration cup regularly or you will burn out quickly.

On another note - her outfit is super cute.

Readers via Email - Click Here for the Video.

Webinar Series with Alanna Kaivalya

Alanna Kaivalya has announced a potential Webinar Series to help you engage in and energize your practice and your teaching. Depending on the response to this first course, She'll be scheduling more over the next week... Myths of the Asanas (explained!) and Crash Course on Yoga Sutras. All of these courses qualify for Continuing Education Credits with Yoga Alliance and are suitable for both yoga practitioners and teachers.

At only $15 it would be silly not to sign up for the first class! Don't get caught up in the idea that sequencing is only for teachers. Understanding how to sequence a class will help you create a functional and playful home practice for yourself as well.

The Art of Intelligent Sequencing

Thursday, Feb. 21 from 2 - 4 pm EST

Total Cost only $15 

This 2 hour webinar will cover Intelligent Sequencing Techniques helping you to learn how to stay true to the original intentions of the vinyasa system while creating a framework that will allow you to create engaging, creative and safe classes for your students.

With the information in this webinar, you will learn:
 * Creative ways to sequence
 * How to plan for peak poses within a class
 * What pitfalls of sequencing to avoid
 * How to safely sequence a class for all levels of practitioners
 * Ways to teach your students even the most challenging poses
 * Clever techniques to keep your classes fresh and fun!

 During the webinar, you will be able to ask questions and interact with Alanna, just as you would in a live workshop. This webinar will count for 2 hours of Continuing Education Credit with Yoga Alliance.

Click Here to Register Now!

Divine Feminine Yoga Telesummit

The Divine Feminine Yoga Telesummit: Transforming Ourselves, Transforming the World
The event is happening live September 4th - September 11th

Attending is FREE!
Learn More or Register Now: Click Here

In this inspirational and practical event, you will: 

• Improve your physical, mental, and emotional health by honoring your deep feminine nature 
• Invoke Goddess Kali to awaken the most intense form of bliss 
• Heal your money wounds with Goddess Lakshmi 
• Navigate the modern world with the wisdom of Goddess Durga 
• Understand how women lost our core power, and how to recover it 
• Embrace your gifts as healer, yogini, and priestess 
• Understand the secrets of the yoga sutras as a contemporary woman 
• Apply the power of yoga to heal trauma in women
• Learn why being vulnerable is the highest form of leadership
• Break through self-doubt and make a HUGE contribution to healing the world

Learn from an extraordinary lineup of top teachers, including: 
Judith Lasater
Sally Kempton
Sianna Sherman
Amy Weintraub
Nischala Joy Devi

And best of all, participation is EASY and FREE.
You can listen live on the web, call in on your phone, or Skype from wherever you are.

This news provided via the Open to Grace Newsletter

Photos from http://pinterest.com/cosmiclila/yoga/

Aerial Yoga Review

So I mentioned it was my birthday Saturday, and I thought it was the perfect day to try something new. I recently found that Boise has Aerial Yoga classes, so I signed us right up for a one hour class at Ophidia Studio. Us = Me and Adam.

Ultimately it was not quite as much yoga as aerial, but I was fine with that. It was still super fun because there was enough flipping and monkeying around to keep me happy. I'll be going back for more and I'd suggest it for anyone to try. At first it's a little awkward, but overall it's easier than you'd think. A lot of it seemed to rely mostly on how much you were willing to just go for it. It was a nice workout for grip strength and confidence.

After class the instructor Katie Ponozzo graciously took a few pics for me. We also did a fun little backflip thing that I really liked, but I decided against asking for a video of it out of respect for her time.

What is Already Yours

"Our desires presage the capacities within us; they are harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. What we can do and want to do is projected in our imagination, quite outside ourselves, and into the future. We are attracted to what is already ours in secret. Thus passionate anticipation transforms what is indeed possible into dreamt-for reality." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

You may recall Adam had not really been practicing until he got laid off from his job in March. With a little coaching he's made it a long way in only a couple of months. He always learns things so fast that it can inspire jealousy, but as his teacher and wife I'm super proud.

Evolution of A Practice

On occasion I get a question/comment that I feel I should just answer to everyone at once. This last weekend Flo commented:

"I love this and I am just curious. Is most of your practice at home on your mat and at workshops or do you have a steady practice with a teacher? You seem to have mastered some pretty advanced postures; and of course I am intrigued :)"

First of all - Thank You ♥... I'm sorry my answer is unreasonably long. (TL;DR at the bottom)

My practice has evolved through many stages. I have practiced for 11 years now - the first 6 years being On Again, Off Again. During those years I had literally just heard of yoga and I took a college class that met once a week. My very first class I had the epiphany that "This was for me." I had found my purpose. Then I sat around wishing I knew how to do something on my own. I lived in a small town and had no idea what to do or where to start. Eventually I found out that Rodney Yee came on at like 4am on TV, so I occasionally got up for a freakishly early practice. I remember the first time he got me to meditate. I was sitting on a blue foam block on a cold white floor in the dark... and something lit up inside me. I bought a power yoga DVD that I rarely used, but throughly enjoyed.

I was still in college and my husband had recently finished his degree - so we moved to Denver where he was offered a job. I signed up for more classes to hopefully finish my degree soon and grabbed another college class. I took the class which I thought was too easy, and I also practiced CorePower Yoga which came on at like 4pm on TV which was much better than O-Dark Thirty in the morning. My practice kinda came naturally to me, but I wanted more. I wanted to teach. My teacher that taught the too easy class had assigned us to write what we had learned about yoga and where our practice would go from here. I wrote that I desperately wanted to teach, but was shy. She told me that when we are passionate about things - we can overcome anything. She suggested I go to teacher training. So I Did.

During training in 2007 (4 months or so) I was at the yoga studio every single day. Sometimes I went to 3 classes in a day. I started to learn some fun little tricks. The last day of training - I got in a car accident. My yoga practice died. Eventually, with a lot of determination and willingness and education - I started over. Completely. I had to start from scratch... couldn't touch my toes, couldn't do downward dog, couldn't do a backbend.

After I had been slowly painfully therapeutically practicing alone for many months - I started teaching. I taught constantly and was lucky if I got to attend a public class once a month. Otherwise I almost had no practice at all. I'd never liked practicing at home, so I just didn't do it. Eventually, my husband got another new job in Oregon - so we moved here. No jobs, no prospects, the yoga community had died before I got here... so I was just alone. I hated practicing at home, but it was all I had... so I started writing class plans. I started practing at home by myself occasionally. Over time it grew into a full on all day everyday type of thing. I grew to love it. Sometimes I fall away from that, but I do practice at home by myself all the time.

I have taught myself tons of things. I get my inspiration from my Yoga Journal subscription and from reading  and videos online. I've recently started trying to go to workshops, but it's not reliable because we often get snowed in.

Back in the day - yogis would leave the world and go practice in a cave. This house has become my cave. I have been forced to go it alone... and I have taken this time to Dig Deep. My practice has grown by leaps and bounds... I have come far and I don't think I ever would've achieved what I have - if I'd stayed in the city and taught.

So I ultimately just have a home practice, but I sometimes take a class or a workshop to assess how I'm doing and get some new info. I think this is ultimately what everyone should do. Home practice should be your lifeline while public study should be supplemental - not the other way around.

TL;DR: I've had teachers occasionally in the past, but for years I have simply practiced at home by myself every day.

You're Doing it Wrong

I often have students, friends, and family members ask me about meditation. They always claim to have tried it unsuccessfully. They say - I can't shut off my mind. No matter what I do I just keep thinking about all these things. In response I like to say - You're Doing it Wrong! In jest of course, because I don't think you can really meditate "wrong".

You can, however, have expectations that are too high, or be judging yourself too harshly - all "wrong".  The monkey mind that swings from branch to branch (or thought to thought) is totally normal. We all have it. So don't be so attached to the idea that you're going to make that monkey stop dead in it's tracks. If you're crafty you can eventually manage to persuade the monkey to play on a single tree, but mostly he's just going to do his thing with or without your consent.

I read an article on Elephant Journal recently that made me chuckle - and I think it puts this common meditation worry into perspective. A little quote from it: "I never force my mind to go anywhere in particular when I sit zazen. When thoughts come, I let them come. When they go, I let them go. Of course there are times when the chugpi is struck three times, signaling the end of practice and I realize that really, I was just pretending to meditate the entire time." His meditation practice sounds a lot like mine so I was amused to read the thoughts that run through his head during meditation.

Read the rest of the article here: Top 20 Thoughts to Think While Pretending to Meditate

Just remember that to sit in meditation is progress. You don't have to be transported to God's palm and have deep psychic discussions for meditation to be "working". It's not about being productive, so just let it go.

Fit Body, Clear Mind

Often times people think of meditation and asana practice (the postures) as completely separate. I beg to differ. For some, the flow of their asana practice is meditative, and for me (and many others) the asana is just a jumping off point to leap into meditation.

Each morning I do about 30 minutes of inversions and sun salutations just to open the body and get myself in the yoga groove for the day. It really clears my head, energizes me, and loosens any tight spots my body gathered over night. I immediately follow that tiny yoga practice with seated meditation. Why? Because the whole point of asana practice is to condition the body and prepare it to be able to sit comfortabley for long periods of time in meditation. Asana also leaves you with the perfect mental atmosphere for quiet self-study. Especially if you do a full practice with savasana. Savasana-head anyone? Perfect for meditation.

Some people ask how practicing yoga postures is supposed to get you to enlightenment. Well, it's not really supposed to. That's what the meditation is for. I'm not going to say that asana practice won't get you there, because I don't know, but that's not its intention. Yoga is a complete system - it's a lifestyle. Just going to yoga class is a fine start... and who cares if you're going there only for the yoga butt. Eventually though, you might want to delve deeper - and that is the point.

Stay tuned for more meditation chatter tomorrow and into next week. Tomorrow - The Meditation Seat.