Photo by Brooklyn Bridge Baby

I have been teaching this bhavana (visualisation) a lot lately at the end of class, and people seem to love it as much as I do, so here, for your delectation, is a cherry blossom relaxation.

You could do it at your desk, but it would be so much nicer if you were lying down somewhere.

Imagine that you are lying on your back under a cherry tree. It’s springtime, it’s warm, and you are on a cushion of fallen cherry blossoms.

As you gaze up, you see blue sky through branches of soft, pink, fragrant flowers. It’s very quiet, very peaceful.

There is a soft breeze, and from time to time, petals drift down off the tree and brush your skin. When they do, feel yourself relax. Perhaps the petals are landing on those parts of you that are most tense, and they relax.

Rest here, and as more blossoms drift down to earth, feel yourself becoming more and more relaxed. Stay as long as you want to, and come back to your orchard whenever you need to.

And, an audio file, which you can get by clicking here. You get to hear my accent now! Poor sound quality because I recorded it on my phone, but hey, it’s a start, non? I welcome all feedback…

It’s been a weekend of good food, good company, and a little bit of high drama for effect.

Lots to be grateful for this week. Let’s start with the food, shall we?
I mean, look at that yummy photo strip!

Le list:

• Cupcakes. Gluten free, home-made, raspberry topped and delicious
• French toast, home-made, berry-topped, delicious. You see a theme? Well, in all honesty, there was also the yummy restaurant French toast on Saturday
• Having people to share the good food with, people who climb off the furniture and sit on the floor at the first opportunity. Visitors all weekend, yay! The more dirty dishes get generated, the better the weekend
• Kids running riot in my house. A controlled riot, never fear. I wonder, if I abducted them and kept them for myself, would anyone notice?
• That gorgeous teapot you see up there? A gift, from the lovely Pam, out of which we drank many many cups of the best green tea ever, a gift from Han. Y’all already know how I feel about gifts…
• My Gran telling me she can’t wait to see me when I get to South Africa
• Skype. Which is how I spoke to my Gran in the first place
• My family
• Looking forward to spending Easter Sunday at my godparents house, just like old times
• Following the discipline of not working, all weekend. I can’t believe it!
• Getting enough sleep. Yes, I finally did. Long may that continue
• Walking on the beach with the waves lapping my ankles
• Waking to the sound of birdsong
• Falling asleep to the sound of wind in the trees
• Serendipitous offers of help
• Free Form Final Friday fun. The yoga was followed by pizza and beer. Kind of a perfect night!

A little while ago, after my customary overthought (real word, didn’t just make it up) I took a leap of faith. A big jump. Right this moment, I am not sure whether I am going to fall on my feet, or perhaps, metaphorically speaking, break both ankles when I land. Who knows, there might just be an endless free fall.

But. I jumped.
I jumped.
And that makes me braver than I thought I was.

Have you ever jumped? Was it easy for you? How did your risk work out?

Where: Woodlands Holistic Healing Centre, 29 Woodlands, Briefontein, Muldersdrift
When: 10am – 4pm, Saturday 27 March and Sunday 28 March 2010
Cost: R1000 for the weekend or R600 for a day pass. Price includes morning and afternoon tea and lunch.
Contact Denise on 073 768 1865 or denises@matus.co.za to book your place.

So, le Happy List:

• Living alone. Bye bye clothes, hello wandering around in my undies. Yes, you now know more about me than you ever wanted to
• Lying on my couch, reading The Time Traveler’s Wife and listening to Belle and Sebastian
• Help from friends and family, specifically in organising my workshops in South Africa over the Easter holidays
• Booking my airticket to SA – first visit since I left almost two years ago! Wooot wooot
• Sleep. Finally got more than five hours, yessss. Even though I had to work on Saturday night to make that happen. And you thought yoga teachers just sat around drinking tea and meditating!
• Staying home. All day. Not talking to anyone. I need times of solitude periodically, to recharge my batteries, and it’s been an unattainable commodity lately
• Understanding friends, who don’t mind when I call them and tell them I won’t be joining in on planned activities, because I need to be alone
• When someone buys you cool stuff for your bedroom, just because. It’s not the actual stuff that excites me, but that someone thinks of me enough to GET me a gift in the first place, you know?
• Counting down the time till I see my beloved family, my godparents, and my BFF. It’s been too long, and so much has happened since we saw each other last
• Getting five free songs from eMusic on account of Valentine’s Day. I love those people. And you know what I did with those credits? I downloaded Juice Newton. Angel of the Morning and Queen of Hearts, the sweet sounds of my childhood
• Watching the sun setting at the beach. Which is Right. By. My. House. What was I thinking living far from the sea before? Now, I come out of my front door, I turn left, then left again, and there it is
• Eating icy poles, or, in South African parlance, ice lollies. The home made kind. Flavours so far: fresh orange juice, pineapple in unsweetened juice, home made apple puree with ginger and lime juice, Jalna Biodynamic Yogurt with Bush Honey. Mmmmmmmm
• A delicious, fancy, rather serendipitous lunch at Montelto Estate on the Mornington Peninsula
• Getting out of the city  on Friday night. To, unsurprisingly, the Mornington Peninsula
• Coffee. Good. Decaf. It’s not an oxymoron, you just have to know where to go. My new local will do nicely
• Breakfast on my balcony. It stills feels like I am on holiday every time I do it. Ditto dinner, when I get to eat that
• Having enough time to eat three meals a day. Who knew that could fall into the category of luxury?
• Kinesiology. Awaken Kinesiology, in particular. Seeing Kerry is like having a re-wire, just when I need it most
• Summer. I know it’s fading, but right now it’s hot and everyone is wearing short shorts and maxing their beach time

The author of this blog is currently too tired and busy to write anything. When she is getting more than five hours of sleep a night and managing to eat three meals a day, she will be back. Till then, love and kisses xx

Blue Trees by Leigh-Ann

Yes, I am late with this. Yes, I am sorry. Life got in the way of blogging, as it is wont to do sometimes!

• Pretty pictures. Look at the lovely one above…
• Picnicking in the park on warm Saturday evenings, with live music in the background, great food, and lovely company
• Lingering in bed till eleven. Ahh, to have more mornings like that
• Feeling purposeful and hopeful
• Anticipation for Mark’s workshop next weekend, woot!
• The amazing, positive response from the attendees of my Breath and Bandha workshop on Sunday. Thanks, you guys!
• Noodles and tea with a favourite friend on Sunday evening
• Celebrating my mother’s birthday.  I know this isn’t true  of everyone, and it makes me even more grateful: I really like, love, and enjoy my family and wouldn’t change them. I am really lucky
• Speaking to my gran on the phone, and she was able to hear me. It’s a little touch and go with her hearing sometimes
• Sleep. One day I will get enough of it
• Being by the beach on sunny days. Gotta love the lingering summer
• Pretty frocks. A girl can never have too many
• Houseguests. Coming next week, yay!
• Cleavage. I have only just learnt to wear mine with aplomb, and now, I work it baby
• Plotting home decor revamps
• The emails people have sent me to say how much they love these lists, heee heee
• And, did I mention sleep? I might have a little nap now, actually

Around my house, it’s time to get serious about trying to get pregnant. I’m terrified, and I realized last night it’s because I will have to give up so much control over my life. How do you do that? How do you go from “I make my own destiny” to “Let’s see what happens…” over night? I don’t know if I can do it.

After this, my friend Melanie and I had an email exchange about surrender too, so I thought, what the hell, let me tell you all my views! Oh, the infinite narcissism of the blogger. The last year has helped me understand the concept of surrender a little better, but it’s still something I struggle with.

I guess it’s a contextual thing: sometimes it’s appropriate to surrender, and sometimes it isn’t. My understanding of the concept of surrender can be summed up in Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

It’s discerning what we can and can’t control that makes the whole thing so complicated. Because it seems rather silly to surrender in an unacceptable situation when it can, in fact, be changed, with enough perseverance. Witness the efforts of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. They did not surrender. They could have, the outlook didn’t look marvellous for either of their cause. But. It was an unacceptable situation. Which could, and eventually did, change. But pregnancy? Some of that is in the hands of the Divine. Same with relationships, I believe.

When my marriage ended, I had been trying very hard, for quite some time, to make it work. Eventually, I let go, I listened to the (very, very loud) messages my body and soul were sending me, and I surrendered my idea of a Perfect Life. I remember walking through the park one day, soon after we split up, and feeling this tremendous sense of lightness. The worst that could happen had happened, and, here was the exciting bit, at that moment, I didn’t care at all what people thought about me. I was free. Just me. Because I had let go, opened my hands and surrendered.

Unfortunately, I soon started to care what people thought again. Deep pattern, hard to break. I just don’t care as much as I once did. This is such a relief, and now I consciously practice letting go of my attachment to other people’s approval. What they think of me has, in fact, very little to do with me. I do the best I can. It’s enough. I know that. Even if I have to repeat it to myself rather often.

This is what I believe about surrendering, letting go: if we know that we are enough, just as we are, if we believe this in the core of our beings, then we can let go of many of the things in this life that cause us suffering. The need to always be right. The need for more money than we actually need (not that a little bit of a buffer is a bad thing). Worry about our physical attractiveness. Worry about our competence to have and raise children, hold down jobs, pay the mortgage. Worry about what the future holds. Worry that we didn’t do the best we could in the past. Worry about being loved. Or not. Both seem to cause suffering. I know: when I am loved I tend to spend a lot of time worrying about the situation changing, and when I am not, well, I worry that I am unlovable. Clearly I haven’t quite got a grip on this one yet, but I am trying!

For me, the essence of surrender is encapsulated in this sutra:

1.12 abhyasa vairagyabhyam tannirodhah

The mind can reach the state of Yoga through practice and detachment

(This is from TKV Desikachar’s translation of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali)

I love this sutra, and, like the Anthroyogini, I feel that perhaps if I get ‘vairagyam‘ tattooed on my person, it will serve as a reminder to Let. Go. I know that surrender can mean other things than letting go, but for me, surrender as a practice of power is a practice of releasing rather than subsuming or submitting. It is a practice of forgiving, because when we hold onto anger, it makes us sick. Sick in our emotions, certainly, and sick in our bodies, often.

This is how I choose to understand the above sutra: When we do the very best we can, judged by whether we are fully present in the moment, and then let go of the fruits of our efforts, the appropriate result is guaranteed.

I say ‘appropriate result’ because things don’t always go the way we think they should, but if we did the best we could, that’s enough, and we can surrender.

When I was 21, one of my closest friends killed himself. He left a note for me. It was more than a year old, left over from the first time he had tried. I was devastated. I had known he was depressed, and he was certainly behaving more strangely than usual, but then, we were young and strange. Both of us. I had a boyfriend who needed my time, I  had my final year of university to get through, and although I pressed my friend to talk, he didn’t want to. I backed down, thinking he would talk when he was ready. It took me a year to get over the guilt of not being able to see his suicide coming. When I finally realised that I had had no control over the choices of another adult, even one I loved, I was free of the guilt. It was when I surrendered my desire to have things be otherwise that I began to heal. I did do the best I could for my friend. I was fully present when I spoke to him. His death was not for me to control. So the appropriate result here was not that he lived, that was not his karma, but rather, that I remember him now with great love, and I remember the girl I was in that grief with great compassion.

That was my first lesson in letting go. There have been many since, just as I am sure there have been in your life!

If we can survive the really hard stuff: the grief, the bereavement, the pain of divorce, then maybe we can forgive those we love for the small things they do that irritate us, we can let go of the idea of conventional adulthood (married, mortgage, 2.5 kids) as the only valid way to be, we can surrender, even just a little bit, our holds on the steering wheel of life. Provided the situation is not violating us on some level, of course.

What do you think?

I used to hold my students at arm’s length, believing that was what was required to be ‘professional’. What this did, though, was limit the degree of intimacy in the teaching relationship. I am not suggesting that yoga teachers should over-disclose to their students, or even, necessarily, socialise with them. But certainly be real, be yourself. If life is hard, sometimes it helps your students to know that you are just a person, like them, going through some Stuff. You are not some levitating super-being.

At least, this is what people tell me. It’s the same when I tell them I struggle with certain poses: how nice to know that the bendy chick up the front battles with some asanas too, and that doing those asanas is not the point of doing yoga. The body-breath link is.

Mark Whitwell (you know, the guy I quote in practically every post I ever write) says there are only three requirements for a teacher:

1. Have your own practice
2. Have a good teacher yourself
3. Care

Amen, brother. He also often says that learning happens when the teacher is

No more than a friend, no less than a friend

No power disparities, no weird game-playing, no rules about socialising or not socialising after class, just people coming together in caring.

That said, it’s sometimes a little hazy. When does the intimacy of the yoga room end and the intimacy of friendship begin? I host Free Form yoga events on the last Friday of every month, and also other events like yoga parties, and those have fostered a growing community of people who know each other from yoga, but are also becoming friendly and connected to one another outside the yoga room. Many of them tell me that this has added to their lives as much as the asana has. I, too, have developed friendships as a result of these events. I see no ethical problem here – these are people who know me as a person, not just a yoga teacher. I don’t hold myself as somehow above them, and they don’t see me in this way. I hope. And we share an integral interest, a common spirituality. Also, frankly, I work. All. The. Time. I am not going to meet people outside of yoga. It’s silly to expect yoga teachers to hold their social lives totally separate from their working ones. Especially since to those of us who teach, it’s such an important and integral part of our lives. Working-living-relating. All one.  Jason Brown wrote an essay a few years ago talking about the difficulty of being a (then single) male yoga teacher. Read it. I agree with everything the man says, always have. What do you think?

Now, a qualifier. All this intimacy stuff is great, but there is no possibility that any teacher would end up being close friends with all his or her students. It’s a time thing, it’s a personality thing, and yes, it’s and appropriateness thing. I have certainly avoided deepening relationships with students when I could see that they didn’t understand the boundaries of what was being offered. Regular contact with your yoga teacher can lead to feeling that you know them when in fact you hardly do. Especially if that teacher, like me, is a blogger and shares some of their internal life in the public space. You will notice I said some. Not all. Not by a long stretch. Assuming that you know me from reading my blog is a bit like assuming you know Jaimal Yogis or Elizabeth Gilbert because you have read their books, in which they reveal aspects of their internal lives. I do actually know Jaimal a little, and I can tell you there is much more to him than the contents of his book.

Me, teaching. Photo by Alison Baker

What do you guys think? What are your feelings experiences been around being taught, and teaching?

To get you thinking, here is some further reading:

Sarah Courts’ blog post – pop over and read it.

Svasti’s thoughts on becoming a yoga teacher, parts one and two.