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DEAR YOGIS,

I have a new goal.   To be the oldest TEACHER OF YOGA in Australia!

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Please hop onto this link and have a look at this wonderful yogi who only started yoga in her 90’s! What an inspiration to us all.  In this time of covid, what we can do matters, not what we can’t – nothing changes.

It’s easy when you get to my age to just rest on your past and think things don’t matter, but when you think things matter less,  is mostly when you discover they matter most.

In my present incarnation and time I am forced to retrace my steps and remember what has been internalised and forgotten.

I find I need to focus on process.  This discipline applies to anything. To art, yoga, even rugby (anything)…you must become immersed in the fundamentals in order to have any potential to reach a high level of understanding.  To get anywhere you must learn the asana and the philosophy.  In living yoga these two themes will be considered at once, but over time your intuition learns to integrate more and more principles into the sense of flow.  Eventually the foundation is so deeply internalised it is no longer consciously considered but is lived.  Then you can forget what you learned – it is part of you. You have seamlessly integrated yoga  into the person called “you”.

When you get to this point, yoga will be silently guiding you.

Although I began as a tough kid to teach –  because I thought I knew everything, not because I felt I knew nothing – a lifetime of yoga has not cooled my desire to know more. I have grown to love study, and teaching above all else. I thrive under adversity.  If I encounter “easy” I  always make things difficult and work my way through the chaos. When everyone else is climbing the walls I have great ease and confidence.  If I lived in the desert I would be a camel.

When I find I path I like I dedicate myself to it.  Unhindered by internal conflict.  When I locate or re-locate the path I don’t have doubts.

To be excellent you have to embrace a long term learning process, and give up the luxury of living a soft, static, safe mediocrity.  Like a hermit crab, at a certain point this luxurious shell safety is too small and you will be forced to leave the and go into the  difficult world. Learning to negotiate this dangerous space between one way of being and the next,  as difficult and dangerous as it is,  is where the real growth can occur.

In my experience, successful people shoot for big goals, put their skin in the game and eventually discover that the lessons learnt along the way are more important than the goal. Even the losses are embraced.

The hard bit is to keep walking towards the goal even if you are under fire, even if you are hurting, even if the world is “going to hell in a hand-basket” (as the saying goes)…this attitude of trust is at the heart of the experience called “living yoga”.

 

STUDY HARD, LIVE LONG AND PROSPER…

NAMASTE – JAHNE

 

 

 

Dear Yogis,

In this time of change, “a time of two worlds”, nothing can be more important than meditation.

Even if you feel rested, there is so much anxiety and fear in the air you can’t help but expect some transference.  In this atmosphere, even a night of sleep will not provide the total rest you are looking for.  I know that you may have tried sitting up, but have not been comfortable, and have given in to lying down, next comes the pillow, after that the bolster under the knees and then SLEEP.  It is possible to find rest in a sitting position and a deeper. Children, as in this photograph, take some time to come to sitting meditation – lying down is just fine when they enjoy the time as much as these children do.  Notice a couple of mums with the children (about mid frame).  What a lovely thing, sitting or lying down, meditating together.

Some folk can sit in full lotus, some in half lotus and some in the Japanese way, the knees bent, kneeling, sitting on the legs.  In this position with a cushion under the feet it is  it is possible to sit for a long time… I began doing meditations in this position and find it easier to keep my back straight when kneeling.  The most important thing in lotus or cobbler,  is to bring the hips higher than the knees by sitting on a stool or cushion, the knees on the floor.  In this way, stability is achieved.  In the end, it where the mind is that counts, not where your bottom us, however, undisciplined sitting will not get you far.  (By the way.  This kind of meditation, this depth cannot be achieved gardening, swimming, or walking.  It is different).

Keep your back straight.  I find this difficult, made easier by making it part of the meditation.  Feeling the spine erect, and following the breath.  As for everything else, let it go.  Place your left hand palm side up in your right hand.  Let all the muscles in the arms, legs, fingers, palms – everything let go.  Imagine that you are a water plant gently swaying with the current, the river bed solid beneath you.  Calm.

You can start with three minutes.  A good time span if you are starting with husband and children.  For yourself, work towards 15 minutes.  It is possible to find peace and calm in the position of sitting.  Some people need to visualise and the image of the gentle swaying of the reeds in the stream is a calming one.

Some students look on meditation as WORK and want the three minutes to go as quickly as possible so they can have a rest at the end.  Perhaps they are not comfortable in sitting, don’t have the patience to sit and breathe.  To expand on the visual of the river, as you settle into the meditation you could imagine a pebble or a crystal tossed into a river.  See it gently sinking down, down, down into the water, finally reaching the bottom to the place of perfect rest you are looking for.

The river bed is the beginning, not the goal.  When you have reached the riverbed this is where you BEGIN to find your own rest and are no longer troubled or influenced by the current of the river around you, moving, enjoying, knowing where you are, when you are.  Find joy in the moment.

Joy and peace are available to you in this time of sitting, if you can’t find it here, it is unlikely you will experience it anywhere.  Enlightenment is available to you.

The Zen Master Thuong Chieu wrote: “If the practitioner knows his own mind clearly he will obtain results with little effort.  But if he does not know his own mind, all of his effort will be wasted”.

COMMENTS:  Would you like to chat?  I am listening.  When you need someone in difficult times, when you are troubled, spinning the wheels, or just stuck...I am getting into ZOOMING, I have my “trainer wheels” on, and can take appointments for individual zoom consultations.  If you are interested, email and we can set an appointment time. Mine is a mindful approach which combines Buddhist and Western philosophies and offers practical solutions… yogafirst2@bigpond.com

NAMASTE – JAHNE

Dear Yogis,

In spite of a lack of attendance, we had a great class here.  Subject: DEATH AND DYING.  But it was fun as inappropriate as that seems.  I have dealt with a few deaths over the past couple of weeks, so the subject was correct, and was asking to be addressed.

I have a few pre-loved YOGA DVD sets to sell.  Not individuals… just buy the set, otherwise the postage makes it silly.  When I bought them they were quite expensive, and will be again as they go out of circulation.  Vinyl records are now $80 each! Who knew!

This is a “YOGA BELLY DANCE” set $50 for the set of two + $10 postage..     I used it for a few classes and it was hysterically wonderful…  I think I have a figure more suitable to the Lebanese version now.

If you have a younger (than me) class who are into music and movement, then they will love having a fun yoga class with this.  I imagine a zoom yoga belly dance class would appeal.  You could award prizes of sparkly things for the navel for the best “yoga dancer”.

 A SET OF PREGNANCY YOGA DVD’S.  $65 for the set of three,  plus $10 postage.   1.” YOGA YIN presents PREGNANCY”  2. “BALLET BABY” with Mary Helen Bowers who taught Natalie Portman her ballet for the movie BLACK SWAN and 3. “RAJASHAREE’S PREGNANCY YOGA”.  A wonderful set that covers all body types, and all movement levels.  If you want to teach some would-be mums, then this is for you.  I keep on looking at Zoom and imagining what great (different) yoga classes these would be.

THIS SET HAS A BARRE (Ballet) FOCUS. $75 for the set plus $10 postage  The Barre method integrates the fat burning format of interval training, the muscle shaping of isometrics and the science of physical therapy plus dance…1. “PREGNANCY WORKOUT” (no bar needed)  2. “QUICK RESULT WORK OUT” (no bar needed) and 3. “BEGINNERS WORKOUT” (arms, flat abs, lifted seat and long firm thighs – no bar needed

If you are interested in getting any of the sets (no, I won’t split the up into individual unit sales).  Please email me at yogafirst2@bigpond.com and let me know so that I can put them aside.  I can send you a PAY PAL invoice (if you have a Pay Pal account), or you can pay via direct debit.  

I am learning Zoom!!! I had my first interactive session yesterday prior to the Teacher Training (thanks Jen and her Team) and have another class this afternoon at 4pm.  When I have these sitting easily, I will start planning more classes.  I know it is the way to go, but I am not comfortable yet with the tech.  But, I will get there.  It makes so much sense

I also learned how to send you PAY PAL INVOICES, so, if you want to buy any oil (new shipment in, a little more expensive sorry to say), DVD’s,  or pay for the zoom trainings I can now give you some options -you can Direct Debit, or PAY PAL.  How good is that! I am quite proud of myself for getting this far.

I hope you had a great weekend, have found lots of fruitful things to do if you are in lock down.. or like me, are picking up new technologies.  It is the time to learn.

 

NAMASTE.  JAHNE