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I’ve been featured in an article in the August/September Australian Yoga Journal that’s entitled “Yoga at Any Age”. The gist of the article is that yoga has a myriad of gifts to offer and the value of them increases with age.
My particular input into the article emphasises that the hip arthritis I dealt with over the years propelled me into more reflective yoga practices. […]
There are the poses we love, those that we feel neutral about, and the ones we wish hadn’t been written into the textbook.
Some people adore going upside-down, others who tolerate inversions, and those who get a crick in the neck with even the thought of head-down-bum-up.
People come to my classes for the first time expecting a workout and find a class that is more pensive and prop-oriented which is sometimes disappointing for them. […]
I’ll let you in on a secret. I love dogs. For the first half of my life, I always had dogs as pets, sometimes litters of them. I can hardly walk past a dog on the street or on the beach without stopping to have a little pat and hello.
Now I live on four acres in the country and I don’t have a dog, not because I don’t want one, but because I travel often and I don’t think it’s fair to a canine to leave him in the kennel. […]
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Today I blew my stack at a friend. I don’t even need to explain the circumstances of what happened. […]
If you’re a yoga teacher, have your yoga classes been suffering the winter blahs. It’s common during the Australian winter that class sizes can decrease and even become minuscule.
In one of the sessions I teach, the numbers attending have dropped right off for a variety of reasons: school holidays, winter flues and colds, sprained ankles or broken arms, work conflicts – all the usual stuff.
I think I’m way beyond taking this lack of students personally. […]
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One of the main things that gets me out to the Yoga Shed early each morning is the fact that doing practice helps soothe my mind.
The mental benefits of practice never interested me in the beginning. I thought yoga was going to help with weight loss and build muscles. And, I admit, the show-off in me liked the fact that even from my first class, I could do some advanced poses.
Soothing the eddies of the mind – citta vrtti nirodha – seems much more important as I’ve gotten older. […]
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I had an opportunity to teach a group of boys a number of years ago who attended Sydney Grammar School. The boys’ music department teacher was a student of mine, and he felt that these boys who were music students would benefit from some sessions.
I prepared my lessons for a group of 14 boys, but only 11 of them came along for yoga. […]
My desk is covered with books. It looks disorganised but I can put my finger on any one of them in a moment. The six sutra scholars who have been sitting on the desk advising me for the last seven weeks have been joined now by Donna Farhi and Godfrey Devereux. They are making special appearances for today’s post.
Why? Because these authors are so accessible.
Are you an action person? Well, then Chapter Two of Patanjali’s Sutra is for you.
Yogis travel the yoga path through action (kriya in Sanskrit). […]
I’ve been thinking about the way we take for granted the things and people at close hand. I said ‘we’ because I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who does this.
For example, today I was writing to a friend who is in Sydney and I wanted to give him a word picture of the view from my desk. […]
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How does a person who is completely body-oriented take on the intellectual study that is Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra? Is it in any way possible for me to comprehend such abstract concepts as karma, kaivalya, kundalini, or kushalata?Today, in my search for meaning in Sri Patanjali’s I-50 aphorism, I am left scratching my head, wondering what to write.
Yes and no is the answer, or, as T.K.V. […]
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I woke up this morning in my warm nest of goose-feathers-doona, and it was oh so compelling to lie in bed. […]
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If you have not yet read B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Life, you have a wonderful experience awaiting you. Mr. Iyengar’s book is subtitled “The Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace and Ultimate Freedom”, and it’s written with the aid of a couple of heavyweight authors, John J. Evans and Douglas Abrams. […]
Perhaps this is too serious a topic for a Friday night, but, hey, we’re up to it! The subject relates to the sutra of the day – how we know ourselves.
Here’s a lovely video that I think illustrates an idea from Goethe: “being a wheel rolling from its own centre.” This is a simple, accessible video class from a series by American, John McConnell, and it’s called “Knowing Yourself Through Awareness.”
I learned yoga with a great deal of emphasis on the physical; this is the way Iyengar yoga presents itself to the untrained. […]
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I saw a photo of B.K.S. Iyengar on Facebook yesterday, taken at the Yoga Institute in Pune, India. He was being celebrated on the occasion of Guru Poornima, the festival that gives disciples an opportunity to offer gratitude to their gurus.
The last time I saw Mr. Iyengar was in Bronte Park (Sydney) where he was being interviewed for a radio program back in the 90’s. He has always been a man of considerable force in the world which has earned him a nomination for The Greatest Indian award. […]
Over the years, I’ve done several 10-day vipassana meditation courses. I can recommend them very highly for the fact that they are conducted in silence, and usually in a quiet rural setting.
The downside of hanging out in a silent environment is that for me the noisiness of my mind (citta vrtti) becomes amplified. Eventually, my mind will get quiet but sometimes not without a struggle.
I remember the vipassana facilitator in the nightly dharma talks discussing what happens when we slow down, and, at the same time, outside stimuli are severely reduced. […]
The calves have started popping out of Farmer Scott’s beef cows on the property next door to us. I haven’t actually seen any births but the numbers of these labrador-sized creatures are increasing each day. […]
I’ve been looking forward all day to a visit from delightful Sydney friends who are staying with us for four days.
We are very well set up for company, with 2 guest suites of rooms and another guest bedroom in the Yoga Shed. It means they can be comfortable and private when they want, and us, too.
We gathered around the fireplace on their arrival for snacks and a glass of red wine, shared a meal of homemade soup and fresh bread, and enjoyed lively conversation.
Then, we adjourned to the t.v. […]
How happy am I to be home again from our week away up north? Completely!
I’ve loved the connections with dear friends and a whole new crop of yoga students. […]
To be accurate, I haven’t attained a-sutra-a-day over the last little while. I’ve been plying my trade in the Byron Bay Yoga Centre therapy intensive. And, it was a total privilege to teach such a shining group of trainees.
To be honest, I was pining for getting back in the company of Patanjali, that old master of wise brevity.
I’m here at the home of Paula and Tim in Coolangatta. I would describe them as bhakti yogis who follow a few spiritual disciplines. […]
I saw a wonderful video presented as a Ted Talk with Brené Brown speaking on “The Power of Vulnerability”. I ‘d seen it before and loved the vulnerability Brene Brown demonstrates. It held me completely on second viewing, as Brown’s talk is entertaining as well as inspiring.
In the spirit of being open with you, watching this video encouraged me to share a bit of writing I did a while back in a life stories course. […]