Judgement Day!

I faced quite a challenge this past week. I was asked to be a judge in the Miss Calgary pageant and said yes! After saying yes, I realized that while I teach and practice yoga this is the one thing I avoid and try to teach others to avoid. "Don't judge yourself, just do the best you can." This sentence is usually followed by, "Don't compare yourself to the person beside you, do what works for you and your body." And then there I was; sitting front row watching all of these beautiful, courageous girls strutting there stuff in hopes to be crowned the next "Miss Calgary." My job was to judge these girls? I wanted to give them all equal scores and give them all a crown and a banner for just having the courage and vulnerability to do it. They were all winners in my mind. But, I had a task at hand and very quickly had to decide how I was going to judge these brave souls. So I put on my game face, and tried to find imperfections,compare one girl to the next and found it quite stressful. Their future was in my hands....crazy. I was fortunate enough to have done a yoga workshop with most of the competitors in previous months, so I started to pull some memories from these workshops and tried to remember how the girls responded to me, the workshop and how they interacted with each other. This thought process made the evening so much easier. I was now judging on a real life experiece where in most cases, I got to witness the girls being themselves. Now I was making judging decisions based on how these girls treated each other, themselves and their competitors; intead of how they looked in a bikini or a fashion that perhaps was not suitable. This added more of a human element to my task at hand and got me through evening. The lesson? You never know in your day to day life why you meet the people you do, but you do for a reason and they are there to teach you something....so if you treat every human with the same respect and integrity that you like to be treated with, you won't care who is judging...you have already won.

Yoga and LasVegas?

I know Vegas and Yoga in the same sentence seems like a bit of an oxymoron . In a city that is charged with energy, is it possible to find some sort of zen...barely!
I am the type of person that can usually find time to do yoga anywhere. I bring my mat where ever go, plop it down somewhere and practice. It's like somebody who runs, you just throw on your runners, grab your Ipod and go...right? And yes, I did see this in LasVegas. I saw people running outside on the strip and I thought, how? Then I realized, why not? While running down the strip there is so much to look at to take your mind off the task at hand, you could run forever. But, every time I thought about doing yoga, I was defeated by the urge to go see another hotel, or watch a show, or play a little blackjack, or...or ..or. Then I realized this must be what its like to live in a person's mind that doesn't stop and is constantly seeking another surge of stimulus. Wow, I lived like this for three days and was completely exhausted when I arrived back home. With my mind racing and my body functioning on pure adrenaline, I was disappointed that I wasn't able to find enough zen to just stop the insanity and just be still for a few minutes. The good news is I have a reason to go back to Las Vegas. I have a challenge at hand. I need to prove to myself that amongst the chaos I can find some sort of serenity.

Yoga Retreat In Goa India

Well time has finally arrived: India here we come. This retreat is for anyone who is interested in learning more about the Ashtanga Yoga pracice. We will have seven days at the retreat where we will eat, breathe and live yoga and then we will end the retreat at an all inclusive resort hotel on the beach of Goa. This retreat is for beginner to advanced practioners. It is going to be quite the journey. Travel dates are from Feb.26/2009 thru March 11/2009.

What is Yoga?

I thought since this was going to be my first official blog, that I should take care of the obvious; what is yoga?

Yes, yoga is a Sanskrit term that means 'union' or 'to yoke' and in the very early days (second millennium BCE) was applied as 'a spiritual endeavor' in means of controlling the mind (manas ) and senses (indriya). After that is was referred to as a Hindu spiritual tradition that encompassed different approaches to 'enlightenment' and 'self-realization.' And then after that...I'm kidding.

Lets take the mysticism out of the term for a moment.
With all respect to the traditional definition, yoga can be anything you want it to be. It is a way of living your best life. For some people this means going to a studio everyday and practicing the postures and sun salutations, for some it is meditation and stillness, it is the offering of service, for others its a place of community, self observance, a state of joy, a way of eating and for some, it is all of the above and more.

For me, yoga is a physical activity that I love to practice and teach because it encompasses a little bit of every sport/hobby that I love to do. It has the element of strength that is required for running, skating and swimming, it has balance and stretching components that I get from dance, it requires breath control vital for any physical activity that involves movement and endurance. It has a chanting element that compliments my efforts at singing. But, the thing I love most is the way it makes me feel. After I have completed a yoga session I feel grounded, balanced, calm, motivated, happy, open-minded, content, grateful, generous; all platforms of which describe how I like to live my life.

If you are reading this and you have never done yoga and have been thinking about it, check it out for your self. Go to www.mypypeline.com/yoga and try it out. You have nothing to lose just a whole new world to discover.