Hi,
My class tomorrow is canceled. Sandy is coming through!
Everyone be safe!
Love,
P
Monday, October 29, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
Next week
I am going to sub the following classes next week:
Thursday at 9:00 am, quick fitness
Thursday at 8:15 pm, Go Yoga
Celebrating my boyfriends birthday!
Love,
Patricia
Thursday at 9:00 am, quick fitness
Thursday at 8:15 pm, Go Yoga
Celebrating my boyfriends birthday!
Love,
Patricia
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Niyamas, in a nut shell
Every Thursday at Go Yoga we have been studying the Yamas and Niyamas. Last Thursday was the last installment of the course. Here is what we covered, in a nutshell.
The Niyamas are the personal commitments we make to subdue the mental chatter of our minds. They are as follows:
(from Kimberly Theresa's Yoga Essentials Course I, The Essential Yoga Sutra, Donna Farhi's book Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit: A Return to Wholeness, and T.K.V. Desikachar's The Heart of Yoga)
Shaucha: To be clean.
When we practice yoga, we take care of our studio, our place of practice, we gather our props and neatly place them around us. When we meditate, we clean our space before sitting down, we decorate our altars. We prepare.
When we are getting ready to go out, we shower, clean our houses, etc. We prepare.
All these rituals, or preparations, help ease our practice and create a comfortable space in which we can settle in.
Santosha: To be contented with whatever we have.
This one is pretty popular. Every religion has a different take on this. In our practice on the mat, it is a practice to stay present, to be happy with the current moment. If a pose feels too strenuous, or a pose feels awkward, it is ok to step back. If the teacher is not doing a class as we expected, or if there is a pose that your body just won't do, to honor those emotions and let them go, create peace and dissolve anger.
Santosha should not be confused with "giving up." Santosha is a practice to stay present and content with the present. It means to practice patience.
It is to look at the glass half full, without the expectation of a result.
Tapas: To embrace hardships for higher goals.
The commitment we make every time we go to a yoga class is tapas. The practice, is tapas.
Outside of the mat, the easiest way to practice tapas is to work hard! We have all had goals we want to achieve, and know that the harder we work for them, the better the reward. Tapas is that "burning enthusiasm" that keeps us working hard.
Swadhyaya: To engage in regular study.
When we listen to our bodies and learn about ourselves, we are practicing Swadhyaya. We can only achieve this practice by being open to what it is that we are learning. To be curious about the lessons of every class, and every day.
I have a tattoo that says "I surrender to my teachers." If everyone and everything that is presented to me is a lesson, therefore I surrender to what it is that I need to learn. It is my reminder to practice this.
Practicing Swadhyaya is easy, as long as our hearts are open to lessons around us, within and outside of the mat.
Ishvarapranidhana: Seek our master's blessings, or celebration of the spiritual.
Every book you read about the Yamas and Niyamas will give you a different take of what they mean. Ishvarapranidhana was confusing to me, until I realized that to seek your master's blessings, or to surrender to God means to seek for your own blessings, to follow what works for you, as an individual. And honor it.
We enter the classroom, we Om, we sit in our mat, and we honor ourselves, our bodies and our mind. When we go to church, we honor Jesus. Whatever it is that you do to do to honor a higher power, is Ishvarapranidhana.
Honor yourself, make everything around you joyful, beautiful, a part of your journey, and suddenly, everything is beautiful.
Love,
P
The Niyamas are the personal commitments we make to subdue the mental chatter of our minds. They are as follows:
(from Kimberly Theresa's Yoga Essentials Course I, The Essential Yoga Sutra, Donna Farhi's book Yoga Mind, Body & Spirit: A Return to Wholeness, and T.K.V. Desikachar's The Heart of Yoga)
Shaucha: To be clean.
When we practice yoga, we take care of our studio, our place of practice, we gather our props and neatly place them around us. When we meditate, we clean our space before sitting down, we decorate our altars. We prepare.
When we are getting ready to go out, we shower, clean our houses, etc. We prepare.
All these rituals, or preparations, help ease our practice and create a comfortable space in which we can settle in.
Santosha: To be contented with whatever we have.
This one is pretty popular. Every religion has a different take on this. In our practice on the mat, it is a practice to stay present, to be happy with the current moment. If a pose feels too strenuous, or a pose feels awkward, it is ok to step back. If the teacher is not doing a class as we expected, or if there is a pose that your body just won't do, to honor those emotions and let them go, create peace and dissolve anger.
Santosha should not be confused with "giving up." Santosha is a practice to stay present and content with the present. It means to practice patience.
It is to look at the glass half full, without the expectation of a result.
Tapas: To embrace hardships for higher goals.
The commitment we make every time we go to a yoga class is tapas. The practice, is tapas.
Outside of the mat, the easiest way to practice tapas is to work hard! We have all had goals we want to achieve, and know that the harder we work for them, the better the reward. Tapas is that "burning enthusiasm" that keeps us working hard.
Swadhyaya: To engage in regular study.
When we listen to our bodies and learn about ourselves, we are practicing Swadhyaya. We can only achieve this practice by being open to what it is that we are learning. To be curious about the lessons of every class, and every day.
I have a tattoo that says "I surrender to my teachers." If everyone and everything that is presented to me is a lesson, therefore I surrender to what it is that I need to learn. It is my reminder to practice this.
Practicing Swadhyaya is easy, as long as our hearts are open to lessons around us, within and outside of the mat.
Ishvarapranidhana: Seek our master's blessings, or celebration of the spiritual.
Every book you read about the Yamas and Niyamas will give you a different take of what they mean. Ishvarapranidhana was confusing to me, until I realized that to seek your master's blessings, or to surrender to God means to seek for your own blessings, to follow what works for you, as an individual. And honor it.
We enter the classroom, we Om, we sit in our mat, and we honor ourselves, our bodies and our mind. When we go to church, we honor Jesus. Whatever it is that you do to do to honor a higher power, is Ishvarapranidhana.
Honor yourself, make everything around you joyful, beautiful, a part of your journey, and suddenly, everything is beautiful.
Love,
P
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Falling behind.
Falling behind!
I owe two of my past classes' material. Forthcoming!
And schedule is updated below.
Also, visit my new website! It's in the works.
Love,
P
I owe two of my past classes' material. Forthcoming!
And schedule is updated below.
Also, visit my new website! It's in the works.
Love,
P
Thursday, September 20, 2012
ADDENDUM: To new schedule post
I failed to specify when Kat will be teaching the 7:00 am- and that's on MONDAYS. I will continue to teach the 7:00 am wednesday class. My complete schedule is below.
Lots of love,
P
Lots of love,
P
New Schedule
Fall is starting on Saturday, and with that, come all new classes!
Go Yoga has amazing new teachers and two new express classes.
Quick Fitness' beloved yoga teacher Cass Ghiorse (a student of one of my favorite teachers, Elena Brower) is going on maternity leave and I will be taking over her alignment based classes on Thursday at 9:00 am. Katherine Colla, a dear friend, is now teaching the 7:00 am vinyasa yoga at Quick Fitness, Moriah Ray starts teaching restorative yoga on Sunday nights, and Hannah Gruber takes over the Wednesday and Saturday classes.
Get on it! Because practicing yoga is better than _________.
Love,
P
Go Yoga has amazing new teachers and two new express classes.
Quick Fitness' beloved yoga teacher Cass Ghiorse (a student of one of my favorite teachers, Elena Brower) is going on maternity leave and I will be taking over her alignment based classes on Thursday at 9:00 am. Katherine Colla, a dear friend, is now teaching the 7:00 am vinyasa yoga at Quick Fitness, Moriah Ray starts teaching restorative yoga on Sunday nights, and Hannah Gruber takes over the Wednesday and Saturday classes.
Get on it! Because practicing yoga is better than _________.
Love,
P
Yamas and Niyamas, continued
Aparigraha (non attachment)
Whether you just started your practice or you're a long term yogi/yogini, Aparigraha, or non-attachment, is another one of the Yamas (the last of the 5, per Master Patanjali) that is commonly used and heard around classes, blogs and yoga-related articles.
Non-attachment on the mat starts from the beginning of your practice. The moment you sit down and close your eyes, in order to embrace your practice, you must separate yourself from the residues of your day. We carry around the emotions and responses of our day, whether we know it or not (snappy, anyone?). Sitting down on your mat before your practice and setting an intention to "let go" is the first step to begin a peaceful and refreshing practice.
Secondly, non-attachment should be practiced in every pose in two different ways, firstly, removing the need to attach yourself to a result of the pose ("I really want to do that pose the student did") and as result, accepting your body and where it is at this present time. Competition is part of the human condition, and seeing a room full of yogis, it is hard not to compare or watch those around you and see how they practice. However, we are all different. What you may be able to do is not what your neighbor may be able to do, and vice-versa. Let go of what those around you are doing, and concentrate on your practice. As you do this, you will see that every step of the asana becomes important, rather than the end result.
To practice Aparigraha outside of the mat is a lifetime goal. There are monks that meditate on the practice of letting go for hours at a time. After all, we are almost programmed to use our memories as a puzzle and attach everything in our lives to our experience. Non-attachment is HARD! I am sure that you can think of many things you are currently overly attached to (shoes? that restaurant? Your boyfriend?) Non-attachment takes constant practice and effort. Paying attention to the present is an easy antidote to being overly attached. Also, being generous to others helps remove that selfishness.
Lastly, to practice Non-attachment you don't have to give away all your material things and let go of everything, it simply means that if those items were to be taken from you, you'd be accepting of your present.
With love,
P
P.S. I am super excited to be teaching the 9:00 am Thursday class at Quick Fitness! If you are local to the Williamsburg/Greenpoint neighborhoods, the yoga community in this gym is a gem, and very hard to find in other gyms. If you're interested in passing by, please let me know.
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