Day 3

If you're über keen, you may notice there is no Day 2. That's because about 6 months ago, I signed up for a little race called Tough Mudder. I went into this yoga course knowing I had to miss the second day of classes once they started.

If you're not familiar with Tough Mudder, I would highly suggest checking it out and immediately adding it to your bucket list (before you can talk yourself out of it). It's an 10-12 mile run littered with 25 separate mental & physical obstacles that challenge every aspect of your being.....oh yeah, and a lot of mud. 

>>Before & After<<

When your bruised and bleeding body crosses that finish line after pushing your body, physically & mentally, to it's absolute extreme, you feel like a champion. 

But do you know what you don't feel like doing?

7 hours of yoga the very next morning.

...let's talk about that.

Day 3

I get to class, and we start with a solid hour of yoga at 10AM. My already fraying & splintering muscles begin shaking after the first 5 minutes. Must. Keep. Going.

And I do.

After an hour of what ended up being a full body vibration, we dissect The Flow.

The Flow

Plank

Chaturanga Dandasana

Urdhva Mukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog)

Chaturanga Dandasana (Downward-Facing Dog)

I have an "Ah-ha!" moment during the plank dissection. Shoulders & Hips aligned. I've heard this probably hundreds of times before, but today, it resonated. 

Ah-ha!

Later on, we had a session with the incredible yogi, German (pronounced: "Her-main")

Meet German A. Bravo-Casas. 

He shined some insightful light on us for hours today.

This man has been teaching yoga for 41 years.

Simple. 

Brilliant.

He worked at the United Nations for 22 years and when he retired, he decided to start a yoga club there. To this day, he is the President of the United Nations Yoga Club at the United Nations. I hope all of the world leaders do yoga with him, it could do this planet a lot of good!

There were 2 nuggets of wisdom that emerged from his twirling, Colombian accent that I liked most:

1) "The Human mind jumps around, like a monkey, and is never satisfied. Yoga fights that. When you have full control of your breath, you have full control of what you're trying to perform. And when you have full control of what you're trying to do, nobody can control you." 

2) "Reading a menu in a restaurant doesn't make you full just like yoga books won't give you all you need. You must practice. The main purpose is not to become a pretzel, it's not about flexibility  It's about awareness."

I'm so thankful he took the time to share his experiences, knowledge, and insights with our class!  

Oh! One more thing!

I must not forget to share one of my favorite things that he shared with us...he passed around the book below, mentioning that it was one of his favorite yoga books:

If you know me, you probably know how much I loved this! This confirmed the hypothesis that I've formed surrounding the idea that I believe most yogi's are cat people. 

Namaste.

Day 1

It's here! it's here! It's finally here!

After months of anxiously anticipating this very night, Yoga Teacher Training has officially begun! 

Tonight was my first Teacher Training class. We didn't dive into the practice or philosophy, instead, we used the time to dive into each other to get to know the people we'll be spending the next 10 weekends with.

                   Meet my class.

They are a very passionate, enthusiastic, jovial bunch.

My favorite part about this class is that despite everyone's lives having a twisting, turning course, they all wound up in the same Yoga studio on a Friday night in New York City as I did.

What I enjoyed even more was hearing about all of the different places they started their journeys from. 

I started my journey from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania...

                       But them!

Their journeys started from places scattered all over the world!

                         Japan

                      Indonesia

                          Paris

                      Venezuela

                           Malt

                      Argentina 

                          Israel

                    South Africa

              Dominican Republic

                          Korea

And thats the beauty of New York. It has this effervescent charisma that attracts people from literally everywhere on earth. You can see the world just by being here, because the world comes to you.

My appreciation for yoga expands all throughout me because I'm hit with the realization that, like a smile, yoga crosses cultures and touches people in the same way, regardless of race, language, heritage, religion, etc. 

What a cool thing to learn more about.

                     Namaste.