Saturday, September 8, 2012

Day Seven: Connection

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













No comments:

Post a Comment