Roxy Yoga

sparty on like monkeys February 8, 2009

This morning we started our training by participating in a Vinyasa class that was taught by Shiva that was also open to the public. It was crazy packed with people! I noticed the capacity of the studio was 147 people and we must have been close. Her style and formula of teaching Vinyasa Yoga is so amazing. After every class rather than sighing this exacerbated sigh of relief like most students, I just think to myself, “Holy freaking shit. I don’t know what just happened, but I feel blissful right now.”

We had a short lunch break and I grabbed a salad, edamame, and fruit to enjoy on the beach. It’s cloudy, but there was no rain thank god and the sun felt great on my skin while I enjoyed some alone time.

Our afternoon session was philosophy by Dr. Paul Muller Ortega. One would think that sitting on a hardwood floor for 3 hours and listening to the history of yoga to be icky or boring, but it was really a great lecture. He started out mentioning that he taught at Michigan State University, my Alma Mater (sparty on!). I felt like this was just a little cosmic spark in my direction sending me some love. He shared his story of being sent to college to become a functioning member of society. He used to walk up to his professors, look them in the eye, and ask the question of life, why are we here, what’s the point. He was mostly unsatisfied by the answers until he met a man who practiced meditation one day. He thought, “This guy has something. I don’t know what it is, but I want to know what he knows.” We are all on our yogic journey because of our hunger and instinct for knowledge. To get the most from this life. Let us not waste our time counting down the days until death. All of the historic yogic texts attempt to answer the question of how to live life and the meaning of death.

This made me think of some people from my past. I have known men who hunger for this knowledge, who are cynical about the fact that many people live life doing what they were told, or doing what everyone else is doing for no real, concrete, personal, inspirational reasons. They say, “I never thought I’d live this long” and their life situations inevitably mirror that assumption. I feel sad that most of these people who’ve crossed my path stopped there. Or so it seemed. It reminds me that we can never really stop questioning, learning, living, experiencing.

Yoga has always reinvented itself at each generational change. Otherwise all you have is some dead artifact in a museum. The sacrificial process of yoga is letting go of the part of yoga that doesn’t really serve you. The point is to let through something better. There has to be living, creative aliveness to it. We don’t ignore the past, but embrace it, turn it into our own interpretation and embodiment. We have this habit in the U.S. to take things from many different cultures without acknowledging where they come from, why they are there.

I love this teacher training process! I love Shiva Rea and this space she’s created and the people who are part of it! It is truly inspiring, creative, nurturing, everything a learning process should be. I can’t help but compare it to my experience at bootcamp teacher training last year. Before we even got into practice teaching she spent time to remind us the purpose of it. We have to learn how to be one hundred percent honest and remember that we are helping each other grow as friends (mitra) on the path of yoga. We have to try to remove the lemon factor, the nerves that practice teaching with your peers brings.

Finally, we finished the night chanting like monkeys for 2 hours. No, I’m not kidding. Cee. Di. Bo. Di. Cee. Di. Bo. Di. It was called Primal Yoga and Monkey Chant and was with Parradox Pollack and Shiva. Awaken your inner monkey, your primal primate wild, playful and instinctual monkey self. Monkey Chant is a style of interlocking vocal percussion and singing which explores the root language of trance and integration with ones own innate nature based upon the Baliness Ritual form of Kecak. It was interesting and fun overall. I had a problem sitting cross legged for 2 hours on hardwood floors without a pad after all the yoga. My bony ankles and tight hips were not happy. I have also met someone from Michigan or Michigan State every day while I’ve been here. It makes me smile.