The Life of a Yogi
Whew. We just finished a 2.5-hour
inversion workshop with Kim, and I can tell already that my arms are going to
be sore tomorrow! It’s the best kind of sore, though, because I know all of us
worked to the point that we made great leaps forward in our own individual
practices; I know I did!
Of
course it’s not supposed to be about the accomplishment – doing all these crazy poses isn't what matters most. But as a very wise Dharma Yoga
instructor once told me: If you observe the incredible changes you can make to
your physical body in just two hours of mindful practice, just think about how empowered you really are
to change every other aspect of your life, through those same intention-based
efforts!
I
can’t believe tomorrow is the last day of the first module; the time has just
flown. Today was really fulfilling because most of the physical practices (except
the aforementioned clinic) were not as hard as previous days, and so I found
myself moving much more gracefully and being much more present in my body, as
well as physically grounded. We started our day with pranayama and sun salutations, led by Kim. Several people mentioned
afterwards how wonderful that session had been. Even though we start almost all
of our days the same way, something about today was special – the energy in the
room, all of us moving together and just feeling each other… Somehow it was
stronger today.
As
another trainee said to me later on, “Today was really a day of connecting the dots.”
She and I had just been discussing our lives and what paths brought us to yoga,
and it was just funny how they seemed to intersect several times. Earlier on, I
had a similar thought when Kim finished our morning session with a passage from
The Dhammapada – a book that I had
just bought a few weeks ago and happened to have sitting in my bag! All
throughout the week, I’ve had instances where I’ve said to myself, just for
example, “Oh, I would really love to do that Govinda chant that Sri Dharma did the other day,” and then, less
than 5 seconds later, we do just that. It always makes me smile – I think we are
all becoming more receptive to each other, and it’s beautiful to see it
unfolding.
The
morning progressed with Dharma Gentle (so tender and restorative), followed by
Maha Shakti and Yoga Nidra with Sri Dharma. Both of those were amazing – just what
we all needed. We had lunch, followed by some small group practice teaching and
then the inversion clinic! I’m sure everybody wants to see the incredible
postures that my fellow trainees were working on in this clinic (as well as the
ones Kim was demonstrating), so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…
~Danielle
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