KonaYoga.com

Breathe Deep and Do Not Gather Gloom

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.-Thich Nhat Hanh

As I mentioned on Friday, slow, deep exhalations have been the focus during all of my classes this week. The instructions were quite simple but not everyone found them easy to do. When I said, "Take a deep breath", some people inspired deep and filled their lungs to capacity within two or three seconds. Others took a deep, short inhaling breath followed by a forceful, quick exhaling breath.

In an effort to illustrate what I consider to be a deep breath, I put my hands together (left hand-palm down, right hand-palm up) and held them out in front of me with my elbows out to the side. When I inhaled, I let my hands separate in sync with my breath and brought them together as I exhaled, slowly. My breaths were not as long as those demonstrated by B.K.S. Iyengar (You Tube, 02:41), not even close, yet many felt them to be much longer than their full breaths.

During the course of a restorative class, folks were able to experience deep breathing with their chests expanded, as well as while bending forward with their foreheads resting on a solid surface. Postures were modified for each of my classes. In Tuesday's Mother Sequence class, we practically doubled the length of the sequence by paying such close attention to lengthening our breaths. In all other classes, I asked them to hold the restorative poses for 24 breaths. As the not-so-innocent-bystander, the results to me were well, breath-taking!

I am blessed with the most receptive, trusting and honest group of yoga students. Each person was responsible for the length of time they spent in each pose and they of course knew, that the winner was not the first one to finish. Also, the last one up was often the one who fell asleep!

What we did receive was greater insight into our abilities to focus, breathe deep and relax. We could all use more practice. The "three soft oms" at the end of class were definitely much longer and we spent 90 minutes doing something positive about our air quality. No one ranted about the vog, they were just focused on 24 slow breaths with exhalations that reminded them....to relax.

Photo:zoethustra

John Leebold, in India

John Leebold rang me (Australian for "called me on the phone") last week and he's still in India. He's attending classes and assisting Guruji in his therapeutic classes at the Iyengar Institute in Pune. 

Ray Madigan and Shelly Choy, co-directors of the Manoa Yoga Center have also arrived so they'll have a chance to discuss John's next visit to Hawaii this coming March.

Staying in an apartment very near to the institute, John's internet access has been spotty but we were lucky to get a decent Skype connection last week (9:30pm my time, 1:00pm the next day in India). The city was preparing for Diwali,the Festival of Lights. "It's very noisy here! Fireworks going off all the time," John reported. "Keep your headset handy, I'll call back soon."

Absorbed by His Teachings

Happy the man whose lot it is to know
The secrets of the earth.
He hastens not
To work his fellows hurt by unjust deeds,
But with rapt admiration contemplates
Immortal Nature's ageless harmony,
And how and when the order came to be. -
-Euripides (480-405 B.C.)                                                                                       

I am blessed to be in a yoga workshop for a consecutive weekend. This time the teacher is Aadil Palkhivala. The first time I attended one of his workshops, I had been attending weekly yoga classes for just a few months. Everything he said then, absorbed me. Nearly eighteen years later, his talks still absorb me.

Aadil pointed out that "one salient point of an intermediate yoga student is a constant awareness of the impact their presence has on the environment." The environment includes other beings as well as the earth.

"All their thoughts, words and actions are of value, or at least of care," Aadil continued. He gave us an example of the way we leave our shoes or sandals at the door of the yoga studio. While their placement may not be of utmost value, we should care for the safety and ease of those who come after us. Will they be inconvenienced or in danger because of our presence?

While the end result (constant awareness of our impact on the environment) beckons us toward an ideal, it is the intention of our actions that Aadil underscored. It is not about the tons of plastic bottles that you recycle or the barrels of oil you save with your hybrid car. It's about "the stuff that you do when no one is watching."

This practice embodies the true concept of saucha. "The most common translation of saucha is cleanliness. But saucha, at its root, is concerned with keeping different energies distinct. Saucha ensures and protects the sanctity of the energy around us." (1)

Aadil's brilliance as a teacher is that he is able to teach multiple levels of truth couched within each lesson. Like a set of Russian nesting dolls, each lesson contains another, and another, and another. How could I not be absorbed?

Experience Aadil as he speaks about Diversity and Choice of yoga styles in this video by Yogamates.com.

Photo:R J Ranjith

(1) Excerpt from Teaching the Niyamas in Asana Class by Aadil Palkhivala. Yoga Mentor, an on-line newsletter for teachers.

                   

John Leebold's Blog

In the few days that he's here in Kona, John's decided to start blogging! He's sifting through photos and learning the ins and outs of Typepad features.

His aim is to keep the yoga community informed of his whereabouts and to share some of his travel-teaching-experiences. Keep checking the blog for additional cities and yoga studios where you can meet up with John. As well as for some of his personal photographs of B.K.S. Iyengar.

View the blog and save this address: www.johnleebold.typepad.com