Namaste dear yoginis,

As most of you may have heard by now, I am leaving Japan at the end of this year. I love my life in Japan, and I am very fond of all the people I know here, especially everyone I’ve met through Imagine. But the time has come for me to move on, and search for new horizons. I will be returning to my motherland, South Africa, to reconnect with friends and family that I haven’t seen in over five years, and when Fall comes to Africa and Spring comes to Japan, I will be making my way to South America to learn Spanish and do volunteer work while traveling.

November will thus be my last month during which I’ll be teaching yoga at Imagine full-time. From December, my lovely friend Casey Easlick will be taking over some classes, and then teach permanently from 2012. I’m positive that you will enjoy her classes and I’m happy to leave you in her experienced, capable hands.

As it’s my last month, I decided to teach my favorite type of yoga: Vinyasa. The next few months of my life are going to be kind of crazy, hopping around between completely different countries, all of which have different languages, are at different altitudes and I’ll even been going through the seasons in a different order than what my body is used to. For me, the only way to go through all these extreme changes successfully and without stress, is to flow through it. By learning to not resist the changes around us, but to flow with it and through it is an important key to cultivating a lifestyle where stress will bounce off you and not crush you.

There is an excerpt from the book “Change your thoughts, change your life ? Living in the wisdom of the Tao” by Wayne Dryer that I’d like to quote:

The Tao and water are synonymous according to the teachings of Lao-tzu. You are water; water is you. Think about the first nine months of your life after conception: You lived in, and were nourished by, amniotic fluid, which is truly unconditional love flowing into you . . . flowing as you. You are now 75 percent water (and your brain is 85 percent), and the rest is simply muscled water.
Think about the mysterious magical nature of this liquid energy that we take for granted. Try to squeeze it, and it eludes us; relax our hands into it, and we experience it readily. If it stays stationary, it will become stagnant; if it is allowed to flow, it will stay pure. It does not seek the high spots to be above it all, but settles for the lowest places. It gathers into rivers, lakes, and streams; courses to the sea; and then evaporates to fall again as rain. It maps out nothing and it plays no favorites: It doesn’t intend to provide sustenance to the animals and plants. It has no plans to irrigate the fields; to slake our thirst; or to provide the opportunity to swim, sail, ski, and scuba dive. These are some of the benefits that come naturally from water simply doing what it does and being what it is.
The Tao asks you to clearly see the parallels between you and this naturally flowing substance that allows life to sustain itself. Live as water lives, since you are water. Become as contented as is the fluid that animates and supports you. Let your thoughts and behaviors move smoothly in accordance with the nature of all things. It is natural for you to be gentle, to allow others to be free to go where they’re inclined to go, and to be as they need to be without interference from you. It is natural to trust in the eternal flow, be true to your inner inclinations, and stick to your word. It is natural to treat everyone as an equal.

This month, on the yoga mats we will go through a series of flow sequences;
*Lower back flow
*Triangle flow
*Arm strengthening flow
*Warrior flow

Let us learn to be like water, and flow according to our true nature.
I’m looking forward to another month with you.

Namaste,
Marilu

Hello! My name is Casey. I am from Los Angeles, California, in the United States. For over five years of my life I was thinking to myself: I really want to live in Japan and get to know the Japanese people. I did not know how I could do it. In November of 2010, after years of patience, one of my long time dreams came true: I was invited to Japan to be a yoga teacher. I had been teaching yoga for over six years in California and lived in the Maldives Republic in 2009 where I taught yoga to people from all over the world. I have studied yoga for over seven years and traveled to Thailand, China and many places throughout America to expand my experience, knowledge and teachings of the yogic science.

In 2005 I retired from my job as a professional stuntwoman after experiencing several yoga classes that impacted me so deeply that they changed my life forever. Although I had a good career and many friends in the stunt community, I did not have a deep feeling of inner harmony and contentment that I really believed was possible to live with. When I began doing yoga I started to feel alive. Through simple postures and basic meditation my mind started to feel clear. I felt healthy and in balance with my physical body, and my heart began to open in the most amazing way. I felt so happy. I am a gymnast and martial artist and have been working with the physical body all my life. I have always been interested in how to use the body and mind together in order to live to our highest potential as human beings. Yoga united my mind, body and soul. It gave me direction and a higher purpose for my life. I decided to make a commitment to teach and show people how to use their mind and body to create a life of purpose, peace and love. It is my honor to be here in Japan to share what I have learned through my own personal life experience.

Opening the Heart’s Center

On the most finite level our human body is comprised of five elements: fire, water, ether, air and earth. We can put these elements together as one group and call it energy. To live at our healthiest and happiest it is important for the energy in our body to flow.

As humans, our energy flow can become blocked as we put our body and mind through emotional stress and challenging experiences. This is natural. The beauty of yoga is that we have a way to shift our stagnant energy and return to our basic foundation of balance and harmony.

In this workshop we will focus on the opening of the heart’s center. We will move through specific yogic postures that will help us to release the old emotions, tension and hurt feelings that we have held deep inside our heart’s center.

Our goal is to create a change… A new opening in our ability to feel, and know a higher experience of our most pure and simplistic state of being called Love.

Two months ago I wrote about the decline in the number of tourists visiting Japan as a result of March’s earthquake and tsunami. I’m happy to report that already things seem to be improving. There is increasing awareness in foreign countries that many parts of Japan, including those places popular with tourists such as Kyoto, Okinawa and Hokkaido, were not affected by the natural disasters at all, and nor did they receive any effects of radiation from Fukushima. As a result, more and more foreign visitors are starting to come back to Japan. In fact, in a survey by the British newspaper The Guardian, Japan was voted as readers’ favourite long-haul destination. For more details about the survey, and why foreigners are again choosing Japan for their holidays, you can read the whole article here:

Returning Japanese | Travel | The Guardian

Namaste Ashiya yoginis!

As a teacher I feel that in class there is a constant opportunity for role-reversal, and I always find myself looking at the students as my teachers. This month too, some of the students provided me with the idea of looking into balance as the topic for October’s yoga. After reading up on it and thinking about it, I realized that balance is a much more complex topic than I thought. I would like to share some of my findings with you.

As I was delving into the world of balance, I started wondering: What exactly does it mean to be balanced? We know that we need to eat balanced meals, have a good balance between work and family and lead balanced lives. But what does this mean, and what does it have to do with yoga?

One of the most popular types of yoga practiced today is Hatha Yoga. We looked into this yoga a few months ago, and said that the word Hatha comes from the Sanskrit words for Sun (Ha) and Moon (Tha). We live in a world of dualities, of opposites always acting on each other, and we always find ourselves somewhere in between opposing forces. Hatha Yoga is a system designed to bring balance and ease out the tension between these forces. Ying/Yang, Hot/Cold, Male/Female, Work/Rest. Latching on to either of the extremes usually has detrimental effects, but staying flexible and flowing in between the extremes brings peace and happiness.

Yoga itself is a systematic practice that helps the body/mind/soul find balance through asana, breath work and meditation. With a regular yoga practice, your body will constantly find its own way of reattaining balance. The key word here is reattain. Our lives are not static. Things are always changing and moving, as we do. This means that balance is not something that can be attained and kept. The moment you find a sense of balance in your life and you try to desperately cling to that, you will find that things around you keep changing and suddenly, one day, your hard-earned balance is now an imbalance. Distressing? It doesn’t need to be. By cultivating a regular practice, you will develop a sense of connection to both your inside and outside worlds, and you will learn how to flow with the times and re-adjust yourself so that you can always reattain balance.

On the yoga mats, I believe that we can express this philosophy of balance through asana. By physically practicing to reattain balance in your body, you will find that it spills over into your mental and emotional worlds, bringing balance there too. Balancing poses are challenging and often frustrating. Mastering it could take a lifetime, and on the way there you will fall. Many times. By letting go of that frustration and self-judgement, we can learn to slowly work our way towards better balance. And there’s nothing more satisfying than finally being able to hold a pose that’s been eluding you for weeks or months, even years!

Even physically, balance is a complicated process. To attain and keep your balance, you use the brain, the nervous system, the eyes, the vestibular system (in the ear) and many muscular systems. In October’s class we will focus on the core or stability, and the legs/arms for strength. Some of the postures we will be doing will include:

Seated balancing poses: Adept pose (Siddah asana), Boat Pose (Navasana)
Arm balancing poses: Crow Pose (Bakasana), Peacock pose (Mayurasana)
Standing balancing poses: Eagle pose (Garudasana), Half moon pose (Ardha chandrasana)

In our end-of-class meditation this month, we will focus on a meditation that balances the chakra system.

Have a fantastic October, and see you on the mat!

Namaste,
Marilu

Do you like the idea of camping? Sleeping under canvas, cooking breakfast over a camp fire, the fresh air of the outdoors revitalising your body? Sounds good, doesn’t it? But really, in all honesty wouldn’t you prefer a thick mattress, breakfast brought to you on a tray and central heating? If so, then maybe you should try glamping – a recent trend in the UK. Glamping, if you are not familiar with the term, is shorthand for ‘glamorous’ and ‘camping’ or, as it is sometimes referred to, luxury or boutique camping.

Go to a typical Glampsite and you will find state-of-the-art tents, yurts and teepees all equipped with electricity and heating. No need for your old sleeping bag either; snooze in comfort on a full-size air or spring mattress. Get all the benefits of the great outdoors but in complete comfort – now that sounds REALLY good!

Unsurprisingly, glamping can be a bit more expensive than traditional camping but you get what you pay for: a fabulous combination of opulence and the open air which will keep everyone in the family happy – and that (let’s be honest) is the most important thing.
Camping will never be the same again!

This is one of my favourite glamping tents. It looks like a cosy, little UFO!

Check out these links to specialist glamping websites:
Go Glamping | Luxury camping holidays and vacations around the world
Canopy & Stars ? luxury camping and glamping holidays, from yurts to treehouses

Enjoy!

Hello Yoginis!

Can you believe it’s already September? Time seems to be going by faster and faster every year!

Recently, all over the world we have been experiencing an increase in strange weather patterns. Hurricanes and typhoons have been appearing all over the globe, often causing chaos in many people’s lives. Nothing in the path of a hurricane or typhoon stays untouched, it ruffles everything it passes over.

What fascinates me most about hurricanes is that, in the middle of all the chaos and unrest, there is a quiet, calm centre in the hurricane where the wind is perfectly still and the sun shines as bright as a summer’s day. So what can we learn from hurricanes?

We can learn to be the eye of the storm, the tranquil centre when everything around us is a big mess of wind and rain in our life. Whether you are in a meeting, with your family, trying to find a parking space, or preparing for an actual hurricane, you might find yourself in a situation where everything around you starts whirling out of control and falls in with the stream of chaos. In this situation, are you going to hop onto the unstable wind, or will you be the calm centre of the storm where the sun always shines?

With yoga, we can learn how to mentally step out of a challenging situation and take control of our thoughts. We can learn how to become the calm eye of the storm.

For September, we are going to focus on power yoga. Power yoga is essentially Vinyasa yoga, but with an increase in the level. By doing and holding these challenging poses, we can learn how to make that mental shift into control and away from the temptation of chaos. By shifting your focus from the challenge / the chaos / the storm around you to the quiet calming feel of your breath, you can learn how to take control of your mind.

Power yoga is usually based around the sun salutation, but we will add some challenging poses into this. This month, we will explore binds and inversions we haven’t done before, as well as some challenging balance poses like Side Plank.

We will spend extra time in meditation this month too, learning how to quieten the mind and increase concentration focus.

You can’t control life.
You can’t control situations around you.
But you can control your breath.
And you can control your mind.

Namaste,
Marilu

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

This has been a very difficult year for Japan’s tourism industry. Since the earthquake and tsunami struck in March, the number of foreign visitors has fallen by 50 percent, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. With the crisis at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima not yet resolved, it is hard to convince travellers that now is a good time to make the trip to Japan. And yet, it is important to emphasise the positives, and encourage foreigners to look beyond this year’s problems and see Japan for the beautiful and special country that it continues to be. Ben Humphreys, a former colleague of mine, has written an article for The Mainichi Daily News (the English-language edition of Mainichi Shinbun), doing just that. Entitled “Eight reasons to travel to Japan”, Ben’s article explains what a foreign visitor can expect on a trip to Japan and why he loves the country so much:

Eight reasons to travel to Japan – The Mainichi Daily News

I recently returned from a trip home to visit my parents and introduce them to their grandchild. Airline troubles aside, it was very nice, thank you. And where exactly is my home, you ask? Well, that will take some explaining. I’ve been reflecting on the matter, and here is what I’ve realized.

Whenever Japanese ask me where I’m from, I’m at a bit of a loss. First there’s the bit about being American. Everyone knows the United States, expects it even, and I suppose that’s why this first part bothers me. Sure, confirming that I’m American usually brightens faces- a phenomenon quite unique to these islands. But sometimes I wish I could foil assumptions and avoid stereotypes by saying I’m from someplace else. I won’t dwell on the mixed blessings and curses of being an Americans though; we’re still far from finding my home.

Which part of the USA did I grow up in? I say the Northeast. America is pretty large, so this vague description rarely satisfies. I am reluctant, however, to volunteer the name of my state, as it leads to a lot of misconceptions. Revealing I’m from New York usually conjures images of glass and concrete canyons, rivers of yellow taxis, The Statue of Liberty (which is actually in New Jersey’s waters) Times Square and a host of other things, all metropolitan, cosmopolitan, and in my case, far from the truth. I am from New York, but not the one you might think.

You see, the above images fit New York City, emphasis on city. But above this city lies a vast and mostly rural land. New York State is nearly as large as all of Kanto and Tohoku combined. I doubt someone living in Nagano wants to be associated with a Tokyoite, and the same goes for me. My hometown is more than 200 kilometers north of New York City, but it might as well be a world apart.

So what city do I live in? Well, I don’t. The nearest Department store or train station is 45 minutes by car. The nearest bus stop or supermarket: 30 minutes. The nearest shop or traffic light is 15 minutes away. I can’t even see my next-door neighbor. My father pays property taxes to Stephentown. But, the post address is East Nassau. The school district is New Lebanon. So which is my hometown? I’m not sure.

Namaste yoginis,

We are well into the second half of the year and feeling the hottest part of summer. I always feel that summer in Japan is a very liquid season. Droplets of sweat, rain, steam and bottles of water to rehydrate… there’s a definite flow and liquidity to summer life.

In that spirit, we are returning to our original vinyasa flow yoga this month. Vinyasa, which means “breath synchronized movement”, can fall under many kinds of types of yoga. Most often, we take it from Hatha yoga though, and we just connect the asana (poses) to each other with smooth, liquid movements. The well-known Sun Salutation is the perfect example of a hatha flow sequence. Vinyasa always has breath synchronised to movement, and we will put extra focus on that this month. Always let your breath lead and your movements follow – not the other way around.

As we said last month, Hatha comes from the two Sanskrit words Ha and Tha. Ha means SUN, tha means MOON. This month, we will look for the first time at the lesser-known Moon Salutation (Chandra Namaskar), the complement and sister sequence to the Sun Salutations. Some of the asana included in the Moon Salutation are:

As for the Pranayama (breathing), we will be doing two sets of breathing exercises this month. At the start of our flow sequence, we’ll get our prana flowing with the standing deep breath, and end the lesson with the Skull Brightener Breath (Kapalanhati pranayama).

Keep cool… and see you on the mat!

Namaste,
Marilu

月毎に行うポーズ名をご紹介します。レッスンの状況により多少変更することがあります。

イマジン語学スタジオにて「英語でヨガレッスン」を始めて1年が経過しました。イマジンでは通常、毎週火曜日の朝と夜におこなっていますが、月1回のペースで、日曜日の午前中に芦屋市立大原集会所にてヨーガレッスンも始めました。朝にヨガをするとすっきりして、その日いちにちを気分よく過ごせる気がします。メンバーさんの中には iPhone で Marilu（ヨガ講師）の声を録音し、ご自宅でも練習されている方もいらっしゃいますが、毎日続けるというのはなかなか難しいものです。

今回は自宅でヨガをする私の友人から、動画が送られてきたので皆さまにご紹介します。
友人は2匹の猫を飼っていて、ヨガをしているときに・・・！　集中力が欠けてしまいますが、楽しそうで普通のヨガより体力がつきそうですよ。もう1匹の猫は、そんな二人を冷めた目で奥のソファから見つめています。面白いです。お見逃しなく！