yoga and me

I practice Yoga & Pilates to bring myself back into an awareness of the more subtle integration of the physical, mental, emotional & spiritual alignment into my body.  

I teach Yoga & Pilates to invite others to explore their own awareness and the possibility of fulfilling their own potential.

I discovered Pilates when it was first introduced to me to build core strength and restore physical equilibrium following health complications. 9 years of Pilates has gifted me with a sense of kinesthetic awareness that i could never have imagined attaining before experiencing it.  I have always wanted to dance and after discovering Pilates I began to.  With a newfound biomechanical efficiency in my body, suddenly everything seemed and felt possible.

Yoga I had been practicing for even longer. And I have always found it more challenging.  It was with Gerard Arnaud that I discovered Vinyasa Yoga and obtained an experience closer to what I had discovered with Pilates. More freedom and fluidity of movement to begin with, more integrated alignment. And then something shifted. My practice with Gerard took me to a deeper level of proprioception, and my yoga practice began to inform my Pilates practice.  And then my yoga practice began to inform my life.

BKS Iyengar says that 'transformation is sustained change and is achieved through practice".

I believe that the quality of my life is directly related to the amount of uncertainty that I can comfortably live with..  my ability to follow the uncertainty of my heart.

Uncertainty does not have to be a negative outcome and transformation does not have to be a goal. But if I am to comfortably live with uncertainty then I must learn to comfortably live with change. And if change, or uncertainty, is constant yet can be sustained through practice then I can practice self sustenance.  

For me, practicing yoga brings me closer to the still point, samadhi, or the feeling of being perfectly centered, or self sustained.   What I am practicing is to sustain the vulnerable life force of the synergy between vitality (my body), calm (my mind), presence (my spirit) and surrender (my emotions).

I am embracing vulnerability, in pursuit of my truth.  I am discovering a deeper self respect which teaches me how to more deeply respect others.  I am celebrating life, mine and yours for we are all the same.  
These past few years my yoga practice has been irregular.  My post-natal body didn't feel comfortable practicing yoga.  I would return to practice and then retreat again.  Later, my life as a working mother distracted me from practicing yoga as much as I would have liked to. The dynamic movement that had once lit my vitality, did not feel within reach. And this in turn affected the integration of my alignment, the dynamic balance of all of my dimensions.  And for some time I was not able to finish this memoir.  But I kept moving and I did not give up on my practice. Until it began to speak to me again. 

And then I received an invitation to attend a Kundalini yoga session which was affiliated with an intervention of the heart workshop.  And I experienced a breakthrough, a reconnection with my spiritual and emotional self.  I had accepted the invitation with the idea and hope that it would inspire me to finish writing my story.  In accepting the invitation, I accepted my own invitation to take action- I practiced yoga, I aligned my chakras, I listened to my heart.  In giving my heart a voice, I was able to tell my story. I was able to describe my journey towards samadhi.

Thank you Gerard for inviting me to share it.

Namaste.

5 steps towards teaching my first yoga class

1.  create an opportunity.

thanks to my fellow yogi, pilates teacher & constant source of movement inspiration kelly 's encouragement, i have finally plucked the courage to volunteer to teach his vinyasa yoga class this wednesday, during his absence.

2.  practice the postures.

i have maintained a regular yoga practice of roughly 4 hours each week in the past 3 to integrate the movement principles into my body.

3.  practice teaching.

until now, i have only taught yoga to enthused pilatistas as a part of my warm up and warm down activity within my pilates classes. thanks to gerard's impromptu round robin teaching practice session that took place during this past weekend's workshops, i have finally taught my first 15 minutes of vinyasa yoga to a class of yogis.  it was a very different experience.  teaching in what i can only describe as a yogic environment in terms of space, ambience and student objectives, those 15 minutes served to clarify for me the distinct shift between teaching biomechanical efficiency and guiding a room full of individuals along their personal yogic journeys.  the round robin feedback session proved to be rich and insightful.  i left the workshop feeling samadhi, feeling perfectly centred, having found yoga on the subject of teaching, clarity on what i want to obtain.

4. prepare the class.

5. teach yoga.