This is not new. Yoga has always been looked upon as a practice that is linked to hindu-ism. I have a few Christian friends who frown upon the practice of yoga. And now we have a Muslim group in Malaysia who has declared a ban on yoga.
Perhaps the reason why is that they made judgement based on what they’ve heard from other people. Did they go for a class before? I’ll take my guess and say no, these people probably have not.
Yesterday I felt really terrible.. tired, stuffy nose, slight cough and extremely “heaty” or what the Chinese doctor would say if you have heatiness in your body. In the Chinese medicine, you always have the “yin” ( cold or female ) and the “yang” ( heat or male ). To be in perfect health, you’ll need to balance this yin and yang in your body. When one side is too heavy, like me, ate too much “heaty” food like fried stuff or stealing spoonfuls of chunky peanut butter at night or sleep very late at night, you tend to develop heatiness in your body. ( note: I am no chinese doctor but these are common knowledge that every chinese knows… I think.. )
In today’s class, I began the class by asking myself this question. What does yoga mean to me?
Here are the thoughts that float into my head as I silently ask myself as I stood at the front of my yoga mat with my eyes closed :
connection
body, mind and breath
integration
calm
listening to my body
connected to my body
my breath
flow of breath in body
Next few phrases are my thoughts now as I typed this post :
freedom to express
awareness of your body
awareness of your mind
awareness of your breath
be present
healing
strength building
flexibility
detoxification
For the past two days, I have attended Patrick’s workshops and re-aligned myself back to Anusara teachings and alignment. It was a good reminder of all the things that I have learned previously of Anusara. Plus it was great to receive the positive energy and the enthusiasm of Patrick.
This afternoon I went for the Teacher’s Forum with Patrick. It was a session for all yoga teachers and for those who wish to perhaps teach yoga. It was an interesting class and Patrick shared some of his experiences about teaching.
