This morning at promptly 7am I taught my first Jivamukti Beginner Vinyasa class. This was outside of my comfort zone since the class followed a specific and structured curriculum, very different from the flexibility and creativity that a Jivamukti Open class provides. I was worried I would forget the sequence. I even (partly) lost sleep over it. For the first time in my yoga teaching life, I had a hand-written cheat sheet. Just in case. During the class, I explained- as it was prescribed in the curriculum- the meaning of vinyasa. Vi means sequence and nyasa means conscious placement. The practice of vinyasa yoga links movement and breath to intention. The depth of the Sanskrit language fascinates me. Our understanding of a concept expands as we ourselves become more open. The common understanding of vinyasa as flow-based movements is only a surface layer of what it truly is. The more comprehensive meaning of vinyasa suggests an awakening of consciousness. To practice vinyasa is to become so consistent in our awareness that we do not miss out a single moment. To practice vinyasa is to be so proficient in our self-observation that all the actions we take are filled with intention. I remember a yoga class I once attended that taught me about intention and consciousness. The lesson was not in the curriculum. It was in the real-life form of the person practicing beside me. I was lying in savasana waiting for class to begin, and I noticed that the student beside me was restless, fidgeting and even pacing back and forth within the small rectangle of his yoga mat. I sensed it was not going to be an easy class- for him or for me. The teacher started to give verbal cues when the student beside me blurted out what at best was a thoughtless remark, and at worst was a derogatory and discriminating comment about the teacher. I was appalled. As I practiced, I could not help but think of the imaginary conversation I would have with this student. I thought to myself, I am going to talk to him after class and call him out on his inappropriate behavior. I will tell him it was rude and unnecessary. I was not focusing on my practice, I was focusing on how I was right and he was wrong. A pivotal moment came when the student accidentally hit me in a pose. It became clear to me that his actions were taken not with bad intentions. His actions did not have any intention, that is all. This person was disconnected from his actions and was completely unaware of how he was hurting others. My perception changed. I realized I was too busy judging him, and I started to feel very emotional. I understood then that he had a lot of pain in his life, pain that he himself was not yet even aware of. We fidget when we cannot stand ourselves. We pace back and forth when we are not happy with where we are. And the irony is that fidgeting and pacing are not effective for the simple fact that everywhere we go, there we are. We struggle with staying still when there is something we want to escape from. The practice of vinyasa is a practice of becoming more attuned to how we move. It is a practice that brings our intentions as the forerunning catalyst of future actions. If, for example, we are unaware of whether our inhalations and exhalations are even when we do our asana, we will struggle because we would feel rushed in one pose and then we would have to hold our breath in another pose. This lack of consciousness drives yoga practitioners to injure themselves. Off the mat, it drives people to take selfish egoic actions. Discriminating against others whom we see as different comes from lack of consciousness. Eating and consuming animals and animal byproducts come from a lack of intention. We do not consciously and intentionally hurt others. We hurt others because we do not have consistent consciousness and focused intentions. Going back to the restless student in this class, he was lacking consciousness and intention and ended up hurting the teacher leading the class and myself who was practicing beside him. As for me, I was lacking consciousness and intention. I was judgmental when I could have been compassionate. When the class ended, I decided to speak to the teacher instead, and I told him how gracefully he handled the situation, which was to let the remark go unnoticed. I could not control my tears at this point, because I have somehow felt connected to the pain of the student, this pain so big that he did not know how to handle it, that he unconsciously and unintentionally buried it. I cannot explain how I knew but I am certain of the burden he was carrying. I have not seen him since but I wish him well. So yes, even though the Jivamukti Beginner Vinyasa class was not my first choice of class to teach, I have a strong appreciation of it. It puts me in a situation where I can be in front of a group of people who are open enough to be conscious, courageous enough to set intentions, and adventurous enough to explore their previously veiled worlds. Vinyasa means conscious placement of sequence. It means that the actions we take are actions taken with full awareness and with focused intentions. It is an uncovering, an unveiling, an unraveling of our true power and potential. When all of our actions are conscious, it becomes an impossibility to hurt another. This is the meaning of vinyasa. *Note: Jivamukti Beginner Vinyasa classes are taught every other Friday 700am to 815am at Yoga+ Makati.
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For the love of vegan candies! Stocks available. P350 each. Email me at [email protected] or message me at 0939-9226518 to place your orders. Pick-up in Makati area (or any of the studios where I teach) only. It occurred to me that maybe I should read through the focus of the month ahead of time, not only for preparation, but to decide which months I should go on vacation. That is cheating, I know. I wanted to cheat this month because it is a constant struggle for me to understand and experience bhakti- devotion to God. I thought, I really am more into the maryada marg- path of effort. To surrender and to leave things to grace are difficult for me. I was taught to be independent, to be in control, to rely on no one but myself. Then I remember this glimpse of surrender that I experienced. It was during Jivamukti Teacher Training. The night went on with a lot of chanting, just on and on. I had no idea when it was going to be over, and I decided for a brief moment I will rest in child's pose amidst of it all, and imagine that I am a bhakta (a yogi who practices bhakti or devotion). In those few moments, I experienced a surge of relief, as if my worries were gone, as if I were all of a sudden not so alone, as if I were part of something or someone, as if I had a team rooting for me. I surrendered and it felt good. I realize further that this surrender is not completely new to me. When I practice asana and get a few breaths to release in between poses, I experience that surrender. After a challenging sequence and a teacher gives us the space to do a falling out breath, I experience the surrender. During forward bends when I release tension from my shoulders, I experience the surrender. In savasana, I let go of my practice and my need to control, and I surrender. Complete and unconditional surrender may be scary to a control freak like me, but I can cultivate awareness of the ways I already practice surrendering. And then I can start to understand that it is my mind playing tricks on me. My mind resists surrender but my body finds relief from it. This body may be a vessel, but it is a vessel that carries with it warnings, reminders, diagnostics. I may struggle with bhakti, and I may continue to do so for a long time, but there is something very beautiful in knowing that I can just give it up- give it all up- and trust that everything is going to be okay, that surrendering is not an end but a promise of a beginning. I dreamt that the world was going to end. There were speculations about how, but I did not bother to join that conversation. A lot of people seemed to want to go someplace else, but I stayed put. I saw this old man with a collection of his books, and I offered to organize them for him. The dogs, on their own, chose to stay together in one area. I urged my mom to take the Ferrari out for a drive. It has always been in the garage and the time to use it is running out. I saw that my dad was getting bored, so I thought I should introduce him to the old man whose books I organized. I was not sure how they would get along though, so I picked an eclectic selection of those books to show my dad, to see if they had the same tastes and would actually get along. When I went back to fetch the old man, I could not find him anymore. There were white feathers falling from the sky. It was apocalyptically beautiful. Some friends wanted to go to Taal Lake and Taal Volcano this weekend, and Saturday being my "lazy day", I chose to skip the volcano part since I have seen it before and go meet them straight at Sonya's Garden in Tagaytay. Prior to being car-less, I did not know how convenient it is to go out of town via public transportation. Well, now I do! To get to there, I took a van from Edsa/Taft (Php170) that dropped me off the tricycle station where I took a short ride (Php30) right to the entrance. This was the first time I went back to Sonya's as a vegan, so I made sure I was wearing waistband pants in anticipation of all the food that I had planned to eat. I only have the salad in the picture mainly because I got very distracted and very busy after this first course. I really liked how fresh the veggies were. The bread and the dips were quite good- pesto, black olive, fresh tomatoes. I mixed my pasta with the tomato sauce, lots of pesto, olives, and capers. I'm a big pasta person so this was quite a treat for me. The desserts were banana rolls and sweet potato glaze. Everything including the dalandan juice and tarragon tea were bottomless, which justifies the waistband pants. The entire meal cost Php683, which works out even better for me because I ate twice- once alone while waiting for my friends and another time with them. (They got held up for 3 hours because they were treating a sick animal and providing information to people who were riding the horses. In case it is not clear, riding horses is exploitation. And the Taal horses get little or no medical attention at all. As a side note to this side note, it is very disappointing to hear that some people were very mean and told my non-Filipino friends "to go home" because they did not liked what they heard. Veganism aside, they talked to my friends in this manner in front of their own children, teaching children that it is okay to talk to others that way. End of rant.) In the spirit of seamless transitions (inside joke so don't worry if you don't get it), I found a vegan lip balm at the gift shop. It's Sonya's housebrand so it is locally-made, and yes, no beeswax! To understand why vegans avoid products from bees such as honey, beeswax, and royal jelly, please read more about it. Next time you're in Tagaytay, check out Sonya's Garden. While there, why not choose to eat only vegan food? It's good for the animals and good for you. Win-win. Every so often I wonder if I have a depressive personality, then I realize I am just vegan, and I go through the constant hurt of seeing how animals are exploited and killed everyday. Dr. Melanie Joy, author of Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows, explains that the awakening we go through is similar to Secondary Traumatic Stress. As inspired as I am by amazing advocates like Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, John Robbins, my teacher Sharon Gannon and my own vegan friends, there are days I would read about something horrible and I would just lose it. There are days I do not feel like being a joyful vegan, "being so radiant that others ask me why" as a fellow vegan put it. There are days I do not feel so compassionate or forgiving towards those who participate in the abuse. There are days I would read about a teenager putting her cat on a microwave or an old man beating his dog to death with a pipe, I would read about these atrocious stories at the brink of tears, and I have to pull myself together because I need to go teach a yoga class. There are days I just want to scream Fuck It. But I don't. I know the positive things to say to a depressed vegan. I've said those things myself. The world is awakening. People are changing. You were once asleep and you chose to wake up. Never lose hope. I wholeheartedly believe those to be true, but sometimes I want to sit in the full magnitude of my pain. Because this is how I am feeling. Because I still care. Because I really am not that detached. Because 95% of the time I am doing a pretty good job coping and assimilating in this omnivorous world. I brush off the thoughtless jokes because they are precisely that. Most people are thoughtless but not intentionally cruel. I do not say anything when people eat products of cruelty in front of me. Because even if it pains me, the timing is not right. 95% of the time I can represent veganism well. But 5% of the time I just want to feel that it is okay not to be so strong. There are just those days. The pain that I feel when it gets too much is the price I pay for awakening to animal cruelty. Yes, it is true that my life pre-vegan did not give me the pain of others. (It was mostly my own pain). But I also did not have a strong sense of purpose. The intensity of my feelings emerged when I stopped becoming desensitized, when I stopped feeling empty. Even if it is just too much, I know that all I need to do is sit with it, observe it, let it go. It will pass. Veganism has brought tremendous gifts to me. It gave me the opportunity to love animals the way I never thought I could. It gave me a sense of connection knowing that my actions matter. It gave me my life's purpose and my life's vocation. It gave me my community, my tribe, the family I chose according to shared values and the same way of seeing the world. It gave me the chance to meet the kindest people in the world with the biggest hearts and they are lifelong friends. So yes, there are days when it gets to be too much. But it is temporary. I will feel better. The anger will subside. Before I know it, I will be having great vegan food with great vegan friends. And those temporary negative emotions are a small price to pay in exchange for the sense of peace and purpose I have, with the company of vibrant souls walking this journey with me. To every animal rights activist in the world, remember this: "The world is awakening. People are changing. You were once asleep and you chose to wake up. Never lose hope." These words are not only reassuring, they are also true. Keep love and compassion alive in your heart. We will win this fight for the animals. Two things that seem to have nothing to do with each other, right? In fact, one can argue that one is a complete contradiction of the other.
The country where I have the most visits is the Philippines, which means I am right on target with my goal. Interesting to see that the next four countries that comprise the most visits are those where Jivamukti Centers exist. I could make an educated guess that these visitors are a captured audience because they are themselves Jivamukti Yoga teachers and practitioners. The pie chart shows how people land on my website. The sources referral, direct, and search counts do not vary significantly. Referral means third party links such as Facebook posts, Twitter links, or anything else that may come from other social media or websites. Direct means people have typed in the website directly or bookmarked it in their browsers. Search means they came to the site via Google, Yahoo or other search engines. I could drill down to the level of detail for each source but since search engine traffic is the source where I may have the least control of, I am just going to go ahead and look at that. This table shows which search terms or keywords people use to get to the site. The top result showing "not provided" means that they came through the site either by typing my website address directly, clicking on a previous bookmark, or through third party site referrals. The next two keywords "yoga + manila reviews" and "yoga classes in manila" seem to indicate that these are people still looking around for yoga classes, checking out reviews and schedules and weighing their options. They have not narrowed down the particular style of yoga they are interested in, and it is this segment of the audience that is fulfilling my goal of increasing awareness for Jivamukti. The next keyword "manila jiva" implies that these are people who have already heard of me through others or received my business card. It is safe to conclude this mainly because this is a brand or alias or identity that I chose based on what I perceive as easy recall. The next keyword, my full name, shows that these are people who already know me. It is probable that we already met. They might have already taken my classes. Then we drill down and see that "manilajiva" appears again, this time with no space between the two words. It shows that the branding is more effective than I originally thought. Had I stopped analyzing data very early on, I may come to a different conclusion.
Because the About page is a static one, let me skip to the Jivamukti Yoga in Manila section and see how visitors click on the sub-sections. Note that this does not represent the total of the site. It shows only data from when they already reach the section. The highest clicks are on studios and schedules, next one being the free classes, and then the general descriptions page. If I want to know if the way I name the titles accurately describe what visitors expect, I can check the bounce rate (when visitors click the page and immediately leave) or time spent for each page. The total average time on site being more than 30 minutes shows that I am reaching out to visitors who actually want to read the site. It means my keyword selections, page titles, and blog titles accurately represent the content, such that when visitors reach the site, they decide to stay and read on.
Consultancy is done via email on a one-time or project basis.
I'm drawn to coming-of-age books, and among them my favorite is Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. Stargirl to this so-called normal world is...well, weird. She is the type of girl who knew everyone's birthday, and if it were yours, she'd come up to you and sing in front of the entire high school. She is so unusual that her peers were both fascinated and put off by her strange behavior. At the height of her popularity, she became a cheerleader. Her school lost a game, and she cheered for the other team. No one understood her. How can she have no sense of school spirit? No sense of loyalty? To her, anyone winning is cause for celebration, no matter who it is. She saw everyone as equals. She is a yogi.
Download Stargirl ebook. It takes only a few minutes. This is a shameless plea to ask you to help me increase my Dropbox storage space. If you're saying yes right now, please sign up by clicking on this specific Dropbox link so it is traced back to my account. Create an account where you can get 2GB free storage space. Install it on your computer. Then you are happy, and I am happy. To increase the storage space immediately, you can do a number of things: view the Get Started guide, link your Facebook and Twitter accounts, tweet about it, and link to your mailbox app. Now if you want a story before give me space, I will give you a story. Tit for tat. I have a netbook that I rarely use. I dropped it accidentally and it was no longer functional. I wanted to have it fixed but I realized the cost may not be worth it since I rarely use it to begin with. I am online through my mobile phone all the time. Emails, Social Networks, even this blog post are all done via mobile. So without thinking twice, I sold the defective netbook not to the highest bidder but most likely at the lowest price- to the person who was suppposed to fix it. It dawned on me too late that I have not backed up my files. My yoga assist photos, videos, recordings are all gone. Just like that. The good news is, some of those I was able to recover. The Yoga Adjustment videos by David Life that I previously purchased are recovered by asking for it from Jivamukti School. The photos I have that I previously shared are shared back to me. Some recordings that I personally had from Lady Ruth and Jules Febre's visit to Manila are gone. Classes I recorded from Will Lau's classes are gone. Recordings from Woodstock shared with me are gone. Recordings of my own classes for self-evaluation purposes are gone (but this one is perfectly okay. I am not exactly looking forward to hearing them again and again). Now that I know the loss of not backing up my files, I am taking precautions, which brings me back to this plea. You too need to think about backing up your files actually. And if you already have an account, why not get another one? Again, the steps. Click on this link. Create an account. Install the program on your computer. Use it. I need space. You need space. Everyone needs space. When I first started practicing yoga, I found it intimidating walking into a room where majority of people dressed in brand names from head(band) to toe(socks). Ok, I haven't really seen anyone practice in toe socks. But the point is, I thought, do I have to spend five thousand pesos for a pair of yoga pants that I will sweat in? Or on the other end of it, is it appropriate to wear worn out shirts and leggings to practice? I tried the opposite extremes, and for me what works is a happy medium. My practice clothes and teaching clothes are actually two different sets, most of the time anyway. The only time they may interchange is during a yoga emergency. That means I have to sub a class at the last minute where I thought I was going to practice. For practice, I choose clothes that are fitted and stretchy, clothes that are breathable and made to practice in. I usually wear capri or leggings for bottoms, with the occasional shorts if it's going to be a heated class. I like Lululemon but it is quite pricey. Recently, I've discovered another brand called Green Apple, and they distrubute tops, bottoms, and pullovers at several yoga studios including Yoga+ where I teach. I wore it to teacher Pio's class last Wednesday and it survived all the backbends in tiptop shape. I like that it's made of bamboo, vegan (of course it has to be) and eco-friendly. Yoga bottoms are particularly important to me because I want to make sure my pants don't rip when I come into splits. (And if you've attended my class regularly, you know I like them- standing, straddle, side- just so many variations to choose from.) The denim-looking yoga pants are great because they can be worn outside practice too. For teaching, I have another set of considerations. Since I am going around giving everyone adjustments, shorts are simply out of the question. There is no grip and I wouldn't want students to feel uncomfortable having my sweaty legs touch their bodies. I also like wearing message shirts that communicate love, compassion, veganism and animal rights. And once in a while, I can manage to match my shirt with the teaching theme. I wore a Ganesh shirt when I talked about overcoming obstacles (and I get to talk about the elephant in the room) and I wore a shirt that says "Never Grow Up" when I talked about the divinity of children and our childlike qualities. One brand that I like wearing for teaching is Australian-based Yogeeks which is owned and run by a Jivamukti teacher. That "Made of Stars" print will go perfectly when I have songs like Woodstock, We Are All Made of Stars, and Neil de Grasse Tyson's The Most Astounding Fact audio clip on my playlist. I have galaxy print leggings (very David Life) to go with it too. They ship worldwide for free. Though in the Philippines, customs tax and duties are quite heavy so do watch out for that. At the end of the day, the clothes we wear during yoga practice (or teaching) won't bring us to enlightenment, but they might just make our asana a little bit more comfortable (or interesting) on the way there. |
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