Up in the early morning on Saturday, I chanced to spy the alignment of the heavenly bodies. Sun, moon and star traced a straight line in the dawn sky, casting their reflections on the calm surface of the sea. As the heavens sang their coloured glory and the birds their joyful chorus, I was given a reminder of my own insignificance. It felt great.
When I see the planets align, feel the Earth turn upon its axis, watch the days break and then later fade away, I realise that I matter little, if at all. I am a speck upon a speck, hurtling through space and time infinite.
In childhood, we believe the world revolves around us. Much of our long-lasting angst arises in childhood when we somehow think that we are responsible for everything that happens around us. Parents divorce, must be because I didn’t put my socks on that morning. Vacuum cleaner broken, must be because I left that dirty little candy paper on the floor. Etc etc ad nauseum.
Growth, maturity, is reached, I believe, when we lose our sense of self-importance. When we realise that we won’t save the world, that our scope is limited, we see that our only duty is to be as good as we possibly can be within the tiny scope of our lives. This is actually much easier, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not that difficult to decide to walk in the door of your house with a smile on your face despite your soul-destroying day at work, now is it?
We are all specks upon a speck, hurtling through space. We don’t know what we don’t know. Life is a huge mystery and probably none of it matters.
Yoga taught me all this. Yoga taught me to be still, quiet, and find that quiet place within myself. I often close my classes with a discourse that goes along the lines of “that stillness that you feel inside, right now, was always there. It’s just that you didn’t know how to reach it. Yoga gives us the tools to reach that still point, that quiet place, and to do so repeatedly and reliably. That is what yoga is, a series of ancient and well-tested tools that help us find our true selves, our quiet, calm, detached peaceful centre.”
We are specks upon and speck, hurtling through space. We probably matter not at all. And that’s ok.
Happy Monday, dear souls. Be joyful.
-Rachel
The sun will come out, tomorrow….Yoga before the sea and the big blue sky
Yesterday morning dawned rainy and grey. Around these parts, precipitation is a present, a gift. The chill in the air was invigorating, and the light reflecting on the wet cobblestones a portend of danger, for they are slippery when wet.
Sophie and Laurence and I warmed up with a white tea before class, then ventured upstairs to el Cielo, which means “Heaven” in Spanish, for yoga class.
There was a chill in the room, so we doubled up the yoga mats, and distributed nice, warm, hot pink wool blankets. When we reached the floor phase of the practice, I noticed that the chill was starting to bite. Feeling protective of my students, I hoped and prayed for some warming rays.
As we began to practice dvipada-pitâm (“the two-legged table pose”), the sun burst through! Suddenly our little greenhouse of a room warmed up! Joy! We finished the sequence with Dolphins and headstand prep…energies were moved, smiles dawned upon faces and yet again, yoga worked its magic.
Thanks to everyone who came to class, it is a honour and privilege to be allowed to teach even a little bit of this ancient system. Thanks to all the yogis and sages who kept this oral tradition alive for us to employ now, in 2018. Thanks to my teachers, Claude and Carmen, for dedicating your lives to teaching teachers. Namasté.
Authenticity in teaching yoga: Why it took me so long to teach.
The first time I ever practised yoga was in January, 1999. That is 19 years ago. How time flies. I knew from the very first class that I wanted to teach yoga, that it was my path. So, why did it take me so long to start teaching? One word: Authenticity.
I had for the longest time the feeling of being an imposter. Imposter syndrome is the persistent feeling that you are a fraud. In the five types that are listed there, I would say I am a Natural Genius and a Rugged Individualist. Oh, with a bit of Perfectionist thrown in, for good measure. It’s a high bar I have set for myself.
In yoga, the stakes are high. You are not playing with people. You are doing serious work. And lest we forget, you can only teach what you know, so the most serious work you are actually doing is on yourself.
It is not easy to start off with the Yamas and Niyamas, the codes of ethics that underpin all serious yoga practice. Non-harming, purity, self-study, contention…it is a long list, and very hard to adhere to 100% of the time. Add that to six-days-a-week practice, and an evolving practice at that, not stagnating, bringing new things to the mat. Phew.
It is easy to fall into the idea that you are never good enough to teach yoga. Or rather, for me it is. Evidently, for others it is not so difficult. There are plenty of people out there who, a year after discovering yogâsana are on a 200-hr course and then teaching a few months later. This is not a criticism of such people, it is a reflection on my inner process, my evolution.
I could not allow myself to do such a thing. Maybe it is simple enough to say that my baggage was too heavy, my inner world too murky, my compass skewed. Who was I to teach anyone how to live happily?
And yet, slowly, progressively, I oriented myself, I shed my baggage, I shone my light. The interesting thing was discovering that we don’t have to be 100% perfect and clean. But, we need to love our own flaws, our own pain. When you learn to love your pain, you become whole and when you are whole you can hold space for your students to learn to love themselves, in their entirety. When I got that, I started to teach in earnest. Now, it is my passion, my absolute passion!
A lot of marketing in the holistic world centres on authenticity. How can we tell the real from the false. I dunno, I don’t have a simple answer. I think it’s intuition, I think it’s a feeling. All I can say is that I think I am authentically ok now, I think I am. I hope I am cos goddarn I am not going back to that place where I was before! So, if you feel like checking out my classes, meeting me to ask about how I teach, having a conversation, you’re already here on the blog. Take the next step and get in touch.
Love, Rachel
Re-post from The Guardian: Yoga for Lazy People
Here is a cute little article from today’s Guardian: Yoga for Lazy People. Have fun and…get on your mat!
Get on your mat! Yoga to ease the symptoms of menopause
I came across this article about the benefits of yoga for peri-menopausal and post-menopausal women. I just had to share!
The study was done by researchers in Germany, and examined groups of women in the USA, India, Brazil, China, South Korea and Germany. What is really interesting about the breadth of the study groups is that the women would have had vastly different lifestyle and diet habits. So, the observed positive effect must come from something outside of existing diet and lifestyle. In this case, the researchers conclude that yoga helps specifically with night sweats and hot flashes.
I worked for twelve years in rehabilitation of women who have had breast cancer. As you may know, many breast cancers are sensitive to oestrogen, so one of the therapeutic strategies is to provoke a chemical menopause. This may sound harsh, and it is, for the ladies. Later, the woman may take a hormone disruptor (aromatase inhibitor or similar) like Tamoxifen for a period of five to ten years. So, I have seen my share of ladies going through the menopause, believe me. The hot flashes and night sweats are very disruptive.
I myself have been crossing this particular juncture in the past two years and the night sweats thing comes and goes. But, as a practising yogi, I will say that my transition has been smooth, and I am not overly bothered by the symptoms. If anything, I feel lighter in my body and more stable in my mind. I did not expect to have a relatively early menopause (I am only 45), but I did expect that my symptoms should be bearable. And in fact, yes, they are.
It is worth noting that the positive effect of yoga might also lie in the way the women perceive the symptoms. It is now known that the intensity of pain or physical discomfort is partly an issue of perception. “A study from the University of Colorado at Boulder released on Jan. 12, 2015, reports that the ability to use your thoughts to modulate perceptions of pain utilizes a completely separate brain pathway than the pathway used to send the physical pain signal to your brain. This discovery is a breakthrough”
So, let’s just sum up, shall we? Yoga seems to be effective at easing symptoms of menopause, even adjusting for diet and lifestyle difference. Yoga is a safe and practical solution. Viniyoga, which adapts the practice to the individual, not the individual to the practice, is a style that can help women who might have co-pathologies like osteoporosis/osteopenia, overweight/obesity, arthritis, and so on.
Have I convinced you yet? Don’t worry, I will keep trying if not. Why? Because I care about your health, even if I don’t know you (yet).
Love, Rachel
Schedule/horarios 2018
Hello beautiful people! here is a quick resumé of the classes that I am offering as of January, 2018:
- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday mornings at 9:30AM
- Martes, Miércoles, Jueves, Viernes por la mañana a las 9:30AM:
GOA Altea, Carretera del Albir, 17, Altea (03590).
- Tuesday and Friday afternoons at 4:00PM
- Martes y Viernes por la tarde a las 4:00PM
New post on alteayoga.es
Hey lovelies. I am trying to move over to alteayoga.es. So, any new posts will go there first. Here is a link to something I wrote this morning. Toodle-loo.
http://alteayoga.es/2017/11/07/the-mysterious-path-of-the-yogi/
The mysterious path of the yogi.
The funny thing about yoga is that almost everyone confuses it with exercise. And while it has been said many times before by scholars much abler than I, yoga does incorporate body postures and breathing, it is really not a form of exercise.
Most yoga teachers know this. If they don’t, with all due respect, perhaps they’re a bit green. Because if you practice with assiduity – and believe me, a yoga teacher who does not practice daily is not a yoga teacher – the other stuff will come. And when the other stuff comes, thus comes the realisation that the postures were only a means to an end. The âsana is the vehicle, the texts are the roadmap, the teacher is the guide, but the destination is wholly unknown.
Yep, no one know where this is taking you. That is the great mystery, and it’s why we practice. We don’t know the lay of the land, we don’t know where this is taking us, and so we get a few surprises (some nice, some not so nice) along the way and sometimes end up not at all where we expected.
Yoga is an intensely personal journey. No one’s experience of yoga will be just like that of another. True, there are road markers along the way and certain steps that are almost universal. but the exact physical, mental and spiritual changes that each yoga practitioner effects are intensly personal.
Why? Because each person arrives at yoga with their own samskara-s, the impressions that make up the character, the ego. So even if Judith and Sarah start the class on the same day, with the same teacher, and never miss a single practice, Judith starts at A but Sarah might well start at K. And perhaps Judith is A on the physical body, but F on the emotional body and a straight up Z on the spiritual front. Meanwhile, Sarah is G, J and L. I mean, who knows? There is no firm measuring stick for any of this, so we don’t even know where we are starting. Maybe we think we’ve gotten quite far with the mental stuff, only to find out that the black dog was lurking just behind us all along.
For this reason, one of my favourite yoga refrains is “Don’t judge a person for where he is on the road. Judge a person for how far he has traveled to get there.”
Get on your mat and practice! Do whatever you can, whenever you can, and open yourself to the mystery of your own life, that will unfold before you. Sweat your prayers, people, and all is coming.
The guru is within you.
New term starts 12-Sept-2017
Hey people, sorry it’s been a while. The summer term has gone swimmingly and I’ve been kept busyingly busy!. Classes were sometimes full to overflowing, sometimes empty to the point of silence. But, the 90-days of consecutive classes is drawing to an end. And, of course, I have got my fingers in the pot, planning for next term.
Firstly, I am going to take a few days off teaching. Last class is this Friday, 1-Sept-2017. Then, until Tuesday 12-Sept-2017, rien de rien.
From 12-Sept-2017, I will offer a five-days-per-week teaching schedule. No class Sunday or Monday, but every other day, yes. Start time is 9:30, pricing model remains the same: 7€ first class, 6€ the second one in the same week, 5€ for the third and so on. Weekly cost for all five classes is 25€, and there is no monthly fee.
So, I hope to see you there. Not for me, but for you. Yoga has special, magic powers and my most sincere wish is that everyone reading this could feel that blissfulness at least once. No, yoga won’t change the world: only activism and engagement can do that. But yoga can change your inner world and that might be a good starting point. Om.
New Term starts 12-Sept-2017
Hey people, sorry it’s been a while. The summer term has gone swimmingly and I’ve been kept busyingly busy!. Classes were sometimes full to overflowing, sometimes empty to the point of silence. But, the 90-days of consecutive classes is drawing to an end. And, of course, I have got my fingers in the pot, planning for next term.
Firstly, I am going to take a few days off teaching. Last class is this Friday, 1-Sept-2017. Then, until Tuesday 12-Sept-2017, rien de rien.
From 12-Sept-2017, I will offer a five-days-per-week teaching schedule. No class Sunday or Monday, but every other day, yes. Start time is 9:30, pricing model remains the same: 7€ first class, 6€ the second one in the same week, 5€ for the third and so on. Weekly cost for all five classes is 25€, and there is no monthly fee.
So, I hope to see you there. Not for me, but for you. Yoga has special, magic powers and my most sincere wish is that everyone reading this could feel that blissfulness at least once. No, yoga won’t change the world: only activism and engagement can do that. But yoga can change your inner world and that might be a good starting point. Om.