Ashtanga Yoga Intensive

Related to the upcoming Krishnamacharya Yoga Festival, there is some good news and some bad news to report. First, the good news. One of the senior Ashtanga Yoga teachers coming all the way from Italy for the festival, Lino Miele, will be teaching an Ashtanga Yoga Intensive next week in Mountain View. For more information about this intensive, you can go here:

http://centerofbalance.com/html/body_events.html#lino

The bad news has to do with the festival the following week:

Sri Pattabhi Jois and Sharath Rangaswamy, received news that Sharath’s father who is in India, suffered from a heart attack and passed away. Hence they are returning to India to fulfill this calling and will not be able to be part of the Krishnamacharya Yoga Festival, nor the remaining tour they had planned here in the United States.

The festival is going on as planned. However, the classes that were to be led by Sri Pattabhi Jois at the festival will instead be led by Tim Miller. The full message about this can be read online here:

http://www.ayri.org/tour.html

Namasté

Yoga Journal Newsletters

I have been a subscriber of the Yoga Journal magazine for years. I enjoy it immensely. I just wish new issues came out each month rather than every other month. Even if you are not a magazine subscriber, you can still access some of the magazine content online at their web site:

http://www.yogajournal.com

Also, you can subscribe to a free weekly email newsletter at their site:

http://www.yogajournal.com/newsletter.cfm?ctsrc=nlhpt

Recently, they started a separate newsletter for Yoga teachers. You don't have to be a teacher to join the mailing list. However, my sense is that the teacher newsletter will be skewed to topics more appropriate for someone that has been practicing for at least a few years whether they currently teach or not. The original newsletter seems to be focused more towards an audience with little prior Yoga experience. In any case, you can subscribe to the newsletter for Yoga teachers here:

http://www.yogajournal.com/teachernewsletter.cfm?ctsrc=nlv72

Namasté

Vinyasa 101

I've been taking classes regularly with Kent Bond in Willow Glen. He is a wonderful teacher with an eclectic background and a non-dogmatic approach to practice. He is teaching this one day workshop with another excellent teacher, Samantha Matthews. This is an Ashtanga Vinyasa style workshop. For those unfamiliar with Ashtanga Vinyasa practice, the cornerstone of the practice is sun salutations (and of course initiating all movements with the breath!) with the various standing poses inserted in the middle of the sun salutation sequence over multiple iterations. Anyway, the early registration deadline is October 18th and the workshop is being held on Saturday, October 25th, at Yoga Matrix in Willow Glen. Full details can be found in this PDF file:

http://www.willowglenyoga.com/images/vinyasa101_1_.pdf

If I can, I'll probably take this workshop myself. I tend to do an Iyengar style personal practice and I need to do some Ashtanga Vinyasa practice in preparation for the classes of this style that I'll be taking with Sri Pattabhi Jois at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Festival in November:

http://yogaofyoga.com/festival/

Namasté

The Spiritual Dimension

With the current popularity of Yoga in the United States, it is unfortunately the case that some classes are taught in a manner that is not much different than an aerobics class at your local fitness center (not that there is anything wrong with aerobics classes or fitness centers). At the other extreme, there are the people that assume Hatha Yoga practice only makes sense within the context of eastern religious beliefs. My own experience as a westerner with Christian religious beliefs engaged in Hatha Yoga practice is somewhere in between these two extremes.

One of the beautiful things about Yoga is the universal nature of it. Regardless of individual religious beliefs, many different people can enter the Yoga studio and enrich their spiritual life through the practice of Hatha Yoga. One place that embodies this to the utmost is the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment (CSE) in San Jose, California:

http://www.csecenter.org

According to the CSE mission and vision statement:

The ministry of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment is focused on the essential truth and harmony found in the world's religions, the necessity for a global ethical and spiritual awakening to bring about world peace, and the importance of individual participation toward this goal. Our vision is individual and planetary awakening to the One Truth known by many names.

I learned about CSE during my time in Joyce Anue's Yoga teacher training program. One of the other students in my class, Mary Eliason Miller, is a Yoga teacher at CSE. Another Yoga teacher at CSE, Julianne Rice, was one of the guest teachers in my teacher training program. I highly recommend both of them as Hatha Yoga teachers. The full calendar of Hatha Yoga classes offered at CSE can be found here:

http://www.csecenter.org/Pub/cgi-bin/Calendar.asp?CatID=7

If you are interested in developing a meditation practice, CSE offers one day workshops and multi-week classes to develop or deepen your own meditation practice. Personally, this is what is drawing me to CSE at this time in my own life. There are many interesting activities and a vibrant community that is very supportive of Hatha Yoga devotees like myself at CSE. I almost forgot to mention the wonderful book store at the center. I can't say enough good things about CSE.

Namasté