Heart Full

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.

When I read that Bhagavan Das was going to be at Laughing Lotus for two events — Kirtan and a Bhakti Yoga workshop, I didn’t believe it. In the past year and half  I have found it very challenging to DIY an affordable yoga education. The elite world of renowned teachers are often difficult to come by. You have to diligently check their website for when they (briefly) come to NYC, or be willing (and able) to travel to a pricey retreat, or be willing to pay upwards of ~$100 per class as I did for the NYC Yoga Journal Conference. Not all teachers are so exclusive — but for a practice that’s about freedom and sharing, it does seem to carry a weighty price tag. So I was beside myself that Bhagavan Das would not only be giving two events at our local studio, but at $35 it was practically free.

It was an incredibly moving experience to chant with him. Sound’s vibrations resonates within you,  and as you harmonize with your neighbors a deeply moving connection is formed, which intensifies with time. He led us through an exercise of clearing the chakras through meditation and a kind of kirtan. And I realized how much I’ve been neglecting sound as form of healing. It had been so long since I had intoned the sounds of the chakras, I’d practically forgotten them, and I could actually feel the rusty energies trying to move through my internal molasses. While a year’s worth of neglect can’t be overcome in one workshop, there was an improvement in the inner energies, or possibly it was just my giddiness at being able to share a connection with a teacher who up until then, existed only on my iPod

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Starting off the new year, with my unfortunate gym membership debacle I was on the look-out in a big way for the best value yoga studio. Enter Laughing Lotus. I couldn’t get enough of the classes there during my one-week unlimited try out, it was conveniently located to home and office, and it could very well be the most friendly yoga studio in Manhattan, even the its’ incense infused scent lingering in the hall is friendly. When they posted their special $128 / mo of unlimited classes (mats, filtered water and cookies included), I couldn’t turn it down.

Nearly three weeks later, I’m still loving my classes here. The vibe, the larger than life colors, and the unbelievably friendly students have placed their mark permanently in my comfort zone. But what I have missed, are adjustments. I haven’t quite put my finger on it yet, but the teachers here seem adjustment disinclined. Not to say, they never touch you, they just hardly do. On the rare occasion that they do, I find myself wishing that they wouldn’t, for example in savasana I can hear the instructor roving doing a half-massage half reiki assist, and she made her way ALMOST to me, but not quite. Leaving me, deliciously disappointed.
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By now, Laughing Lotus is a venerable Yoga Studio on the New York scene, and just about every drop I’ve heard about this place, has been glowing. But I was dubious, especially when I was blinded by the colors, almost the minute I entered. “Ah”, said my inner voice, “bohemian charm”, much like Kula Yoga . But the studios are almost nothing alike, and I am sheepishly ashamed at having been so judgmental.

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