flowing with grace

i am still definitely on a high from the 11 hours of yoga over the weekend. attended the amy ippoliti workshop in singapore and all i can say is that i was really amazing!

so i admit, there were a couple of asanas that i was not able to do. but just being there - with students who were so passionate about the practice was truly inspiring and uplifting.  it made me want to become a better yogini in training and really go deeper into my practice.  

i have learned that i have gone past the stage when yoga was just something to help me stay thin. it has transcended that and has risen to a much more higher sense of purpose.  more than the alignments and the asanas and the tools i have learned that i can take with me with my daily practice, i have perhaps learned the most important thing during the workshop...that what sets yoga apart from stretching, from pilates from any other form of exercise is that (and to quote amy), "yoga is a way of life". it does not end when we leave the mat.  it just in the mat where we practice, where we focus and meditate...but yoga is also what we do as we leave the mat.

and i realize just how much yoga has really transformed my life.  and it is this constant journey of transformation that i am looking forward to.  

i wish i could just take everything that i have experienced that weekend and just let everyone else experience...and yet i know words will not be enough to describe experiences like those. words simply will not give it enough credit.

and so despite this long blog i have written...i cannot find the right words to express and describe how wonderful and truly amazing it all was...

different state of consciousness

we did hip-openers last saturday for hatha 1 class and i have to say that my yoga experience this time was something quite extra ordinary. we focused on the 2nd chakra which is just around the abdomen area...this is where we repress our emotions and keeps the flow of energy in our body. so, focusing on this chakra and doing hip openers supposedly released repressed emotions. i was unmindful of that though during class. all i wanted was time to meditate and focus on my asanas. at the end of the class, the part where we do the final savasana and try to empty our mind, i found myself in a different state of consciousness. i do not have the words to describe it...it just felt really, really different. and it finally made sense why my yoga teachers would often say:"come back to yourself..." at the end of class or say "wiggle your toes", etc. it finally made sense. because it actually really felt like that. it was as if, you literally had to suck yourself back in to your own body. it felt weird but wildly exhilirating!
and yet, 2 days after that yoga class, i find myself in a rather pensive mood. like i was just about ready to burst into tears...and i was missing and reminiscing about my life in bangkok. i am not sure if that has a lot to do with all the "repressed" emotions that my yoga teacher was talking about... but that yoga class definitely left me hovering between intense sadness and bliss. not bad for releasing repressed emotions...