The DC area yoga page has become the second most popular page on this site so apparently someone finds it useful. As an additional feature, I have done a little online research and determined which studios offer teacher training and certification. This training component is a sign of a studio's professionalism and scope of services because it takes a substantial investment of knowledge, resources and energy to pull off a 200-hour (or 300 or 500 hour, or pre/post-natal) accredited training program.
Teacher training does not have to be just for those who want to become a teacher. Anyone who wants to deepen his or her understanding of yoga can take a course. My daughter took teacher training last year at Flow Yoga and only a handful of the 20 students are currently teaching. Another way of doing yoga intensive is the 108-hour Anusara immersion program, like the one at Willow Street Yoga.
Finally,
my main yoga shala, Thrive Yoga, is starting a teacher training program in affiliation with Alan Finger and ISHTA Yoga. Two weeks ago I participated in a weekend workshop and was really impressed with Alan Finger's depth of knowledge of yoga, tantra and ayurveda. He's an ol' school yoga guru who traces his lineage back to his teachers: Paramahansa Yogananda (author of the classic book Autobiography of a Yogi), Swami Nishraisananda, Swami Venkatesananda, and Shuddhanand Bharati when they frequented Alan's father's home in South Africa. This is a tradition that is different from the Krishnamacharya branch of the yoga tree (B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois and T.K.V. Desikachar) that predominates in the States. Finger came to the States in 1975, founded Yoga Works in LA and then came to NYC and founded Yoga Zone/Be Yoga. His participation in the Thrive ISHTA program sets it apart from most teacher training offerings in the Washington area.
The Finger workshop had a strong emphasis on the underlying universe of knowledge that supports yoga. Alan also integrated pranayama and meditation into the experience. He explained how the chakras related to the whole energy system and why they were essential to understanding yoga. He encouraged questions from the participants and let their interests guide the discussion. His laughter was the mantra of the workshop, punctuating his self-deprecating humor and joy of living.
Most people came to the workshop expecting to work up a good sweat with a vinyasa practice. Instead, we really had to exercise our minds. In the lone vinyasa segment during the workshop (I attended Saturday AM and PM sessions, and went to the Sunday session to take photos), Alan gave two adjustments that helped me correct some bad habits: in downward-facing dog, I was not maintain the curve in my lower back; and in twists, I tended to lead with my head and neck, over-exerting, when my head should be the last element to come into play. In other words, I was trying to hard to get into poses.
Labels: dc_yoga, website, yoga_resource
I wanted to put up more remarks about the workshop but I am just too tired physically and psychologically. Three days in a row of full-bore practice really depleted my energy stores and left me flat, but my muscles were not sore. At my age, energy recovery comes more slowly. I am making a point of getting to bed by 11:30 tonight. More to come later.
I was outside the country last week on a work assignment, which prevented me from posting any blog entries. I could check my e-mails a few times, but really did not focus to put together even a short item. I was in Santa Marta, Colombia at my organization's semi-annual meeting. I was able to do pranayama and meditation each day, and even fit in some yoga in my yoga room a few days. I needed the healing to recover from the wear and tear of flying and hectic meetings. You would think that being forced to sit in a seat for extended periods of time would be conducive to calm and clarity -- it's not. I will try to put something more substantive than this notice shortly.
I have taken the moderator review function off of comments here. It was just a speed bump in the commenting process. Of all the comments up to now, I did not notice any uncivil remarks or spam. It also a bother to remember to review comments on a regular basis.
Labels: website
A while ago, I turned on the moderating comments feature, which means that I have to approve each comment before it will appear in the blog. Well, I forgot to go back and do my moderating. I checked in this evening and there were four comments waiting for me. I will have to checking in more regularly. I have noticed that comment spam is starting to seep into my blog and I wanted to put up a barrier. I will see if the moderation feature takes too much interference from me and remove it if it does.
By the way, I did more changes the resource gateway, DC area yoga, reading and Art of Living pages. Nothing radical, just incremental changes to make them reflect my practices and changing links.
Labels: website
I have completed my 30-day challenge of blogging, starting on April 6. Because I had a double entry yesterday, I came out one ahead of the standard count. There might have been a few days of fluff because I came home late after a practice and did not have a lot of creative juices left in me. I don't think anything, like an injury or violated secret, has happened to me because of this increased posting. Another milestone is that it's my 300th posting, but my other blog, La Esquina del Movimiento, has 2,067, since November 10, 2000, compared to April 2004 for this blog.
To prevent this from being pure fluff, I am including a pointer to a site of yoga videos, Channel Yoga. It also has forums, interviews and a Google News ticker. I believe this is the inspiration of Kyra Rider, who has a blog, a yoga demo site and a yoga studio in southern California. I chanced across her network of sites before and forgot to mention them.
Labels: website, yoga_resource
I have added a slew of online resources to my meditation page, in effect, putting links where my mouth is. I hadn't done much with that page since I carved it out of the gateway page more than a year ago. I've also done some updating on the recommended reading page. I am going to have to do some housekeeping on the site because some links have gone bad over time. There are also some pages that just do not fit together, ugly and misshapened from a standard Blogger template. That's the price of maintaining a website and blog on the cheap, in terms of resources and time.
Labels: website
My daughter is doing the "30-Class Challenge" at Flow Yoga in April and Thrive Yoga is going to have a "40-Days to Personal Revolution" following the Baron Baptiste regime, starting on April 30. I don't know if I can fit the time requirements for this type of physical challenge into my routine, but I am willing to turn it around, and put my own challenge on the Web: I will blog my yoga-meditation experience for 30 days in a row, starting as of April 6 since I already have four days when I've written something. As with the yoga challenges, you are allowed to double (or triple) up sessions to make up for a missed day or two so I could technically go back to April 3 if I write two entries in a day with just an extra blog entry.
Why am I resorting to this gimmick? I've slacked off my writing (both online and on the page) over the past year because I lost my drive to expose my practice. My practice had become more internal and needed some silence time so that it could mature and deepen. Now I feel that the time has come to re-encounter my yogic expression in words. Hopefully, I will not have many days like yesterday when I try to describe yoga poses and human anatomical mechanics as they apply to me. I just wanted to put up a picture and save a lot of words. More important is what goes on in my head and heart.
