Trust & Muscle Energy

To many of us Trust is a gift an offering where as if you were to practice Trust you would want to embody it and that would mean you would need to be strong and full of stamina. Muscle energy or hugging ones muscles to bones creates stability. Stability, strength and steadfastness is what you really want in your friends.

I found a list recently of all of the efficacy of ones practice. One effect of practicing yoga is that you are able to see the divine play. To me this one is huge because I didn't always see it that way... I saw utter chaos and glimpses of intrinsic order and only when it was going my way. I remember the day that my perspective shifted and I just happened to be practicing yoga and the instructor, John Friend was pointing out how the rainbow always appears in the same order, when practicing postures in a certain order opens up the body. When rain drops fall they seem chaotic but when measured from beneath they create a pattern. The order is always shifting so we have to chase it in the shakti and keep lining up with it. Easier said than done I know...

Embody the trust, by first feeling things as they are as raw as they may appear then hug in muscles to bones embodying the trust and then flow in order with the shakti or how the energy moves you.

Friendship

Friendship is such a blessing and each of us has angels of virtue who will never know how much they have affected us and there really is no way of expressing this besides simply living their teachings. Dedicating a practice, meditation or day to a friend is a sweet gift to remember and celebrate their virtues and teachings. Embody friendship!

What would be the qualities of this?

- commitment

- steadfastness

- balance

First be friendly with yourself, make friends with this vessel you have been given especially when it is stiff and not as mobil. To do this hug your muscles to the bones and that is when the body feels its safest. Then commit to hold steady in every posture like your friend was there for you.

There are 4 types of friends:

1. Teacher - someone who has walked the path before you

2. Student - someone who looks to you for guidance

3. Equal Friend - someone who walks beside you along the path

4. Not so Friend - someone who makes it difficult for you to walk your path

We experience these levels in our postures and that is why we practice so many diverse postures in yoga. This allows us to practicing making friends with even the most wobbly or difficult postures. Again the key is the hug the muscles to bones and then balance that with an extension through your bones. This sounds easy but we often don't recruit all of the muscles of our bodies. Some stay asleep and yet some over work. Find the perfect balance in a relationship in your body and you will be honoring all of the friend relationships in your life. Especially the one you dedicate your practice too.... practice their teachings.

What a great thing for someone to say about you.... You are a great friend!

Thank You - Mantra

Each year for Thanksgiving my we will go around the table and each tell about what we are most thankful for. This is such a wonderful practice. It allows us to dive into our hearts when we remember our blessings. It creates a marker each year to reflect back on and sends a message to the universe/shakti that you not only appreciate this but are ready for more in the next year.

A fun practicing using this wisdom is to reflect first and then sum up the thing you are most grateful for into ONE word. Usually a heart quality comes from this such as: love, trust, patience, friendship, health, confidence, etc. Write this down on some special piece of paper and meditate chanting the "thank you" mantra.

To chant a mantra with the most effectiveness sing it internally with every cell of your being. Perhaps even feel how your inner being and brightness stays steady and buoyant with the mantra as your outer being melts around your inner body listening to the sweetness of the mantras vibration and teachings. Other things to notice; the colors you see when your eyes are closed, the dance around the mantra as the center of the meditation, and how the resistant areas of your body receive the mantra.

Whenever something of a maha or great teaching comes along say a little "thank you" mantra to sing back to the universe acknowledging the blessings.

thanksGiving

Making everything we do an offering filters us to be our best selves. Even receiving everything as an offering allows it to flow through you sweeter. Every breath, thought and action a gift to the universe, your friends and teachers.

When practicing each posture as a mudra or gesture you are reflecting each moment on what is the most thoughtful gift. Asking the question: am I really giving it my best effort? Am I balancing and sustaining my energy knowing that each movement after will be considered an offering as well?

Welcome everything as it is, receiving it as a gift and then pouring our best self through everything we do. We all are moving, living and loving works of art lets flow and offer this as our truth.

Happy thanksGiving!

Loyalty

Loyalty encompasses 2 virtues... A strong steadfastness in your commitment to that which you are loyal and a tender, open, sensitivity to be there for them even when its at its most difficult. You would never let your friend down and this is a major part of a yogi's practice. We strive to be the people you can count on. We want you to feel safe around us. We are all born with this potential but we must remember and cultivate are skills in order to do this to the capacity and level that our lives, community and universe ask of us.

These intrinsic virtues can be used to take our yoga practice to the next level. Also, help us to embody these virtues deeper. So without words we stand tall, hold strong with the utmost sweetness to our friends and loved ones they know we support them.

This theme was inspired by the great spirited people of Metro-Detroit. With their hard work ethic and sweet sensitivity we have "Built this City" solid with loyalty to our culture. It is a rich culture at that, full of love for Cars, Music, Sports and the essentials Water. :) To my peeps, thanks for seeing me, I surely see you!

Yoga is for flexibility...

It is a huge misconception that Yoga is for flexibility and that in order to get flexible you stretch. Actually you can only be truly as flexible as you are strong and strong as you are flexible. Allow me to explain...
If you were a true rubber band man then your knuckles would touch the ground by now and you wouldn't be much of a man. If you were a true strong man then you wouldn't be able to pick up the dumb bells in order to do the squats to make you strong. As in our bodies so it is in life... in order to navigate this world we have to hold strong to the people we cherish, protect them and serve. On the other hand if we gripped to hard we might not be able to get out of the way when things in life are falling apart.

Hold strong with discipline and you can actually become more flexible... be open minded and flexible enough to navigate your body with brilliance and you can fire the muscle groups you don't necessarily always do and you will be able to strengthen and stretch in balance. Muscles hug to bones so that your joints are protects and you can then shine out through your bones and feel balanced energy flowing through you.

Hug to those you love and be strong to continue your practice so that you can shine and navigate this complex and adventurous world.

Beauty in the World

Teaching a class at Lululemon is not only an honor but a great opportunity to celebrate beauty. It's one of the things that we can all agree on... we all know the what we think is beautiful and not so beautiful. We can all agree when something is unfinished, messy or even not as beautiful as it could be and its not judgment its just our nature to seek the beauty in life. Honestly, there is so much beauty in the world its sometimes hard to drink it all in.

If each yoga posture we practice is an offering then how can we honor our gifts and talents? We simply have to move to the Lakshmi of the posture. The final, full fruition and best we could possibly be at in that moment. If we go there anyone observing your practice will see the beauty of your efforts and minimally if you smile then its contagious. Smile from the inside in every pose and you will know your practicing at your capacity.

To inspire you here is one of my favorite songs to have stuck in my head... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qX7ZsxD3Ik&ob=av3e

Rainbow Spanda

Weaving and spiraling through our bodies is color, vibration and sound. Like a rainbow its orderly and leaves a map of density. Even down to the smallest nadis, acupuncture points or meridians these are places of nada... or sound. Everything vibrates and not only can we see the color and density but we can feel the vibratory quality.

If we sang up our spines we would travel through a complete symphony of sounds. Starting at the base with lower and slower sounds all the way to the top where it might be so high pitched and quick we can't hear it or see it.

This rainbow bridge of vibrational centers is referred to as our chakras, a map for us to guide with attention them into a steady and balanced pulse. If each of these centers vibrates at a harmonious pace then we create balanced cells which simply mean they are healthy. Health is a pretty high reason to practice attention to the details. :)

Forgiveness

Forgiveness means seeing the good even when we are blinding by the past, the hurt and the trauma. Though, what we often don't realize is that it is us that is suffering by not loosening our grip to those things we hold with tension. I don't know about you but I would do pretty much anything to not suffering... it's optional after all. So it may take practice but once you see one thing that is good, that makes you laugh or that connects you to that object or person, your vision will grow and you will empty of your hatred, gripping, and friction and be truly filled with life's love and beauty that is already there.

So in class we all shared the postures we haven't made friends with yet just as an experiment to see if practicing them would trigger us and if we could bring ourselves to not only practice them but see the good in them. Together we all celebrating and shared in our human capacity to choose to love or hate. To grow or to stay the same and of course to suffer or not... we all survived the postures and felt like bigger beings because of it.

Shift Happens

I can't stand the idea that my life is written and set in stone. That I am simply this character in a movie just playing my story all the way through. That would mean that nothing I do really makes a difference and no matter how hard I try nothing will change. This concept simply doesn't make sense. A friend of mine Manoj, a Murti dealer who loves telling the story of his scroll he found in India. There is this city in India holds the"shiva scrolls" that are written in time according to Shiva. You can visit this place and if you do your scroll is there and will tell you your past, present, future and even when you die. He has visited this place and knows when he dies, even has shared with me that his wife is happy because she dies before him. I think this is sweet because that means she can't stand living without him, I know the feeling.

Manoj being a friend of mine I felt compelled to confront him on this story because after careful contemplation, meditation and thought this concept doesn't feel right in my heart. I can't believe that this is all written that there is no way I can change my life and maybe that is because I have come so far from where I was. Just 9 years ago I was giving out cigarettes at bars in Detroit and yes, smoking cigarettes. I seem like an anomaly if you know me and know what kind of person I am today.

I asked Manoj if there is anyway we can change our scrolls and luckily he said "yes." He told me of this man who as soon as he had seen his scroll in India he began practicing meditation and preparing himself for his death. His scroll told him he was going to die at the age of 57. At the age of 57 this man like the scroll said rolled off a road in a violent car accident and walked awayunharmed. When asked what happened he told Manoj that he dropped deep into meditation, stayed calm and now is 70 years old. Further more, the man went back to the city in India to view his scrolls be he saw it and it actually hade changed. Re-written?

This was awesome news, though it seems mystical and impossible, I needed to hear that there was a possibility! Not only can I re-write my scrolls but the practice that I hold dear is potent enough to bring thatkind of presence and make me adept to change and navigate this life. We may all be flowing down a river but I get a paddle and the better I refine my skills with the paddle the better I can navigate this life's obstacles.

With precision and practice.... Shift Happens!!!