One week in

Lo Kah Sa Ma Sta Shu Khino Bha Van Tu
May all beings everywhere be happy and free. May the thoughts and actions of my own life contribute to that happiness and to that freedom.

It only seemed appropriate to open this entry with one of my favourite mantras as we have been singing them everyday.

So we have just finished week one and it went by so much faster than I had anticipated. We had today off and was let go an 1.5 hours early last night. I went for a two hour massage to recharge my physical body, ate a delicious dinner with my favourite man and had two cheeky glasses of wine with my beautiful flate mate. I enjoyed within reason to relax and surround myself by good company.

Today I went with one of my Kula sisters' Keesha to a one hour practice with my teacher Lawrence P. After practice, he helped Keesha and I to learn some of the mantras better with his soulful guitar skills. The sanskrit language is so beautiful in that every syllable vibrates a different chakra in your body. I could really feel myself in this vibration today when we just got into our little jam session in the studio. It was one of the nicest treats to recharge and prepare again for week two.

This past week we really found out how the five universal principles of Anusara Yoga can help the flow of prana (breath) in your body if you apply them! Here is a condensed version of what they are:

1- Open to Grace - believe that you are worthy of being and living to your most divine self.
2- Muscle Energy - the drawing in of all your muscles to be stable
3- Inner Spiral - creating a space in your pelvis and allowing your kidneys to open up in your low back
4- Outer Spiral - creating an ability to expand and balance out the inner spiral
5- Organic Energy - The expansion of your creative self out in your practice

We have been given a lot of information this week and the on thing that is sticking out in my mind right now is, our Optimal Blueprint, meaning finding the ultimate physical alignment for your best health. It is NOT easy, but it is definitely worth and the feeling of satisfaction is something you can savour everyday.

Interesting Fact: If you do a back bend without applying these principles, you could be bending from your T12 bone instead of your pelvic region and this can cause your kidneys to contract. The effect is, you get a quick boost of adrenaline and feel great in your practice but hit a low and feel tired very soon after your shower.

In our Kula of 32, we have been practicing teaching every day and Patrick posed a very funny situation to us early in the week, as a teacher he said, "think of explaining yoga to your 90 something granny" that is how you have to see your class. Well as luck had it, my granny called me and I had to try to explain to her yoga, in cantonese and not get too frustrated that I couldn't find all the right words to share it. This is something to work on too, articulating what yoga means to me in cantonese to share it with other people in my life.

Well, the laundry is back and I've just finished making and eating dinner. I'm currently baking lots of chocolate oatmeal banana muffins for my class tomorrow and I hope they turn out okay as I ran out of some ingreidents and had to get creative!

If you're following and reading my blog, I want to say THANK YOU and Namaste (Which means: I bow to the most divine in you.)

Final thought, they say you are the mean of the 7 closest people to you. If this is true and I had all of you, my near, dear, new or far friend, in a room together to list my top five qualities, what would they be? I'll reveal my top 7 in the next entry and their top 5 qualities that I find in them. ^_____^