Yoga And The Sonic Bubble Filtration System
/Dear Yogis,
“Practice, practice and all is coming” is a famous Ashtanga quote. Does it mean all the postures are coming? Does it mean one day you’ll be an advanced yogi? What does it promise?
David Swenson, my guru, said: ‘No! It doesn’t mean butterflies and rainbows are coming. It means everything in life is coming at you: sorrow, difficulties, hard times and good. Yoga practice is where you find resilience. Do your practise precisely because everything is coming.
He said: “What do we actually have control of in our life? It is very little if we think about it. What we do have control over is just how we respond to the challenges of life.
He went on to say yoga practice creates a sonic bubble filtration system around us, like in those Star Wars movies! There is the good ship and the bad enemy. You are the good people on the good ship. Enemies start shooting but you have your force field. Missiles are bouncing off, but it's only going to hold for so long. The shield starts to weaken. We need to reenergise the force field with our yoga practice. When we practise, barbs of life are coming at us but we have the renewed force field, the sonic filtration system.
Proper guru!
Classes
NEW MID MORNING CLASS: On Tuesday 10th November, this coming Tuesday, I have a new class Strength and Stretch Yoga at 10.30am. You’ll know if you come to my classes that I like to include knee health. I want to include hip strengthening, quads, adductors, core and arms. These are all recognisable yoga target areas with yoga poses and drills. Also, we will spend a substantial portion of the class on a stretch. Everybody loves a stretch!
Amazingly full classes this week! I hope the new Tuesday class will appeal to you.
Mon, Tues & Wed evenings = Stretchy yoga at 7.00-8.00pm – this is the popular one with a bit of Yin.
Tues Mid Morning = Strength & Stretch 10.30am – Important strengthening and important stretch!
Friday morning = Ashtanga at 8.30-9.30am – this is the more ‘dynamic’ one.
Friday evening = Yin and Restorative Yoga – 6.30-8.00pm – Bringing healing to Ealing. Next = Nov 13th
Saturday morning = Ashtanga at 8.30 – 10.00am - A lot of work and a lot of achievement.
And, by the way, you can post a google review of my classes here. (There are some nice ones. Take a look!)
Retreat
Anyone looking for a retreat this year? A lot of you will already know Ladan Soltani from her Ealing Town Hall classes. She has warm and wonderful Lanzarote offerings this Christmas and New Year. Escape the cold!
Yoga in the News
The Indian Express has: Why yoga is not science, despite Vivekananda’s claim. (Great read!) ‘None of this makes yoga worthless. Sitting still, watching the breath, quieting the mind: these do something real for people, and modern medicine studies some of those effects, using its own methods. But a feeling of certainty, however intense, is not evidence. An inner experience cannot be repeated by someone else in another room. Patanjali never claimed otherwise. Vivekananda did, because in 1896, the word “science” opened doors in America that the word “religion” kept shut.’
The Telegraph has: I’m a yoga teacher who needed two new hips at 53 – here’s how I recovered. ‘What caused all this? Doctors have never been able to say specifically what prompted my body to reach the point where I needed a double hip replacement in my early 50s. Frustratingly, one told me I just had “bad bones”, while another said I was “a woman of a certain age”.
