Yoga for November 2011

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