Heart Full

I was dubious when we were introduced to the doshas — an Ayurvedic system that (in loose terms) identifies your constitution. It sounded a lot like the gunas to me — the tendencies. And I’m still not 100% clear on exactly what the differences are between the two. But we got a thorough introduction to the doshas, and just like our teacher promised once explained the system “just makes sense“. I discovered that at this point in my life I am Kapha Vata. Meaning my primary dosha is Kapha — think 1st and 2nd Chakra — earth and water — I’m cold, heavy, wet, dense and oily. My Vata side is air, lightness — think quick, spontaneous, but dry and rough. In many ways my two sides are opposites. When my Kapha is out of balance i have phlegm, I sleep excessively and I’m practically immobile. I can’t count the number of times when my husband came home from a full day and was shocked to realize I had laid in bed ALL day, watching the entire first, second, and third season of Lost, only to decide after watching all of that … that I didn’t really like the series. On the other hand when my vata is effective, there’s never too many things for me to multi-task. If the vata gets out of balance, I become obsessed and I don’t sleep. And this can last for days, everyone from my room mate in college to my neighbor has asked me, “how do you operate without sleep?!” and I usually answer, “there’s too much to do.” But I know these are the times I’m running on empty.
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I’ve always been a big fan of journaling, I feel it gives you some much needed time for introspection. I find that writing things down helps me add clarity to some otherwise very muddy thoughts. So it makes sense that journaling is part of our training, but with that special Lotus twist. We’re encouraged to POUR out our thoughts, “don’t lift the pen from the paper if you can help it“. So for 2-5 furious minutes some yogis are frantically writing, while others like myself are drawing blanks. But the questions resonated with me, so even if we’re not in class, I took them home and thought about them. Each one is deserving of pages and pages of journaling but one haunted my mind, because I couldn’t answer it, “why do you teach?”. Such a simple question that you would think I’d have answered by now seeing as I am IN the 300 hour teacher training program.

The answer for the 200 hour program was so clear, I wanted to learn how to teach my friends and family, so that maybe they could experience the healing powers of yoga the way I did. I wanted them to feel the ecstatic liberation of a pain free body, the deliciousness of a sweet svasana, or the beauty in the movement. Were these still my reasons? Yes, my friends in family are in fact my best students, I love waking up and teaching them. But do I really need to be in a studio to teach them? Probably not.

The easiest answer for me is because I want to share what I’ve learned with others. I don’t know if that’s totally true. If I truly wanted to share there are probably better ways to do it, for example I’m probably reaching more people with this blog than I am in my still not-very-populated classes. I think I’m teaching for myself, because by learning how to teach I’m able to offer something more, more of myself, more of a service. And that has been making me feel whole.

It’s funny the things you don’t notice are missing from your practice (and by extension life) until someone points it out. And when they do, it’s that “ah-hah” moment when a million new possibilities flash in your mind all at once. The missing ingredient was ritual. I had disdained ritual in my 20s primarily because it reminded me of somber catholic ceremonies which I only participated in under duress. As I got older, I’ve become more spiritual and no longer actively avoid ceremony. But I still don’t incorporate much ritual in my life. My food is eaten without thanks,  special dates like anniversaries approach without notice and then at the last minute are haphazardly celebrated. In fact not only do I NOT notice / incorporate any ritual in my life, I actually don’t like many of the ones I have to participate in, like birthdays, bridal showers, and other “Hallmark Holidays”. It always seems like the drama outweighs any benefits. But then, as our teacher pointed out life ends up just passing you by without any punctuation of meaningful moments.

She encouraged us to create rituals in our lives. To build the alter. To learn the deities and be inspired by them. To celebrate ourselves, because we are GODDESSES. To remember that time passes, events happen, and we should take a moment to acknowledge those transformations. Even better she dressed up our third eyes, a small act that made everyone visibly brighten, even my husband remarked that it was “neat“.  While I’m not ready to call myself a goddess just yet — (though i did float the title to my boss just to test the waters), I think there are small things I can do to add rites back in my life.  First, I explored my neighborhood and found inspirations of divinity.  I saw that at the local church there was an advertisement for an upcoming exhibit, it read:

* I AM , the bread of life

* I AM, the light of the world

* I AM, the gate

* I AM, the good shepard

* I AM, the resurrection and the life

* I AM, the way, the truth, and the life

* I AM, the true vine.

And I couldn’t help but notice that this was very much like the mantra, SoHum. — I AM that. Lovely.

I’ve been looking forward to my home coming for months, especially since this time we’d be able to go on a mini getaway — Boracay Philippines. Boracay is one of the most beautiful beaches in the Philippines IMHO. Admittedly it’s become quite commericalized — as seen by the beach front Starbucks, but the white sand is still powdery soft, and the water a sparkling blue crystal. It takes your breath away.  There’s almost no better place to do yoga, and after having no luck in finding an open studio in Manila (many closed during the holidays) — I figured my yoga would be whatever I could craft up on the beach.

But my ever observant husband, actually found a yoga studio right along the beach — True Yoga. Located just about “True Food” an Indian restaurant on the main strip. They only offered classes at 9am (daily) after which the “studio” converts to a restaurant. No worries, some yoga is better than no yoga.  I was the first one to arrive at 8:50am sharp, most of the other students trickled in around 9am-9:30am in fact the instructor didn’t get there until close to 9:30. It was a casual setting, some regulars, but a few tourists (like myself). I found out that there were about ~3 instructors and they rotated yoga styles daily between Hatha, Sivananda and Anusara. Lovely.

The instructor was lively and friendly. She chatted to other students about kids — hers were apparently in college — surprising as I wouldn’t have put her a day past 35. Sensing that there was a lot of different practice styles around the room she announced that today’s class would be Hatha yoga “just the classics”. Great, I was looking forward to a non-flow class where natural music wouldn’t have to compete with the manufactured sounds.  But it didn’t turn out so great for me. Hard to believe given the view — the most jaw dropping post-card ready view any yoga studio is likely to have, or the acoustics of lapping waters, I somehow couldn’t get it together in class. And I’m not entirely sure why. I think it was a lot of different little things. I’d mildly pulled my hamstring recently, so still dealing with the frustration of not being able to be as mobile. The girl next to me was called “Mary” and the teacher’s pronunciation made it sound like it could’ve been my name — so verbal adjustments were a challenge. And I guess I just wasn’t happy with the poses. The instructor seemed like she had a specific way of doing the poses — and didn’t seem thrilled with my modifications. I’m also not a big fan of teachers who give advanced poses — and encourage their beginner students to “just try it”, without a lot of instruction or other options. So I saw a number of half lotuses achieved by rotating the knees rather than finding the opening in the hips. Scary. An injury just waiting to happen.

By the end of class I was so testy about the whole experience I left so fast — I actually walked out of the studio wearing someone elses shoes. Unbelievable.