The extended classes will run Mondays and Fridays 4:00-5:15pm, ending the week of April 12-16. This will keep you in the yoga groove a bit longer, as the next semester’s sessions won’t start again until the third week of May.

Drop-ins will be $10/person. Sign up for all 4 on either Mondays or Fridays for $32, or sign up for all 8 on both Mondays and Fridays for $60. Attendance will be taken, and multi-class passes cannot be shared or partially transferred to others, to keep it fair for everyone.*

Sign up online via PayPal, or bring cash this week or next week at your regular class. Guests are welcome - invite anyone who’d like to come!

I think I’ve finally started to get stable vision - wohoo!! This means I can be at the computer and reading for more than 45 min to an hour a day, so I will prioritize getting this website login section put up for you for next week. In the meantime, I’d like to have you do your assigned blog posting in the comments section of this post on the question we explored in class Sunday:

If you were the ruler of your very own empire (and you are, btw - it’s just less populated than an ordinary empire ;) ), what specific laws and ethics would you want to incorporate into the culture and legislation?

Ever thought about going deeper in your yoga practice but were unsure how? Feeling stalemated or limited by what you can do on your own or what you can get from an hour or two a week in class? Maybe Pranalife Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) is your next step. 

Don’t be intimidated by the “Teacher” title. Even if your interest isn’t to teach, this training is designed to take you beyond good to become something great - that something great you want to be. The work we do in these sessions will be vigorous and enriching. You will be challenged to grow, learn, and change.

I’ve posted the basic info on the upcoming YTT Module below. Visit my Teacher Training link for full details.

Open to the idea; you just never know where it might lead …

Module II: Living Yoga

This module will be an immersion into making yoga an integral and powerful cornerstone of your life. Building from a solid grounding in the basics of being a great yoga teacher, our focus will be on the Eight Limbs of Ashtanga Yoga, the psychology behind the practice, bringing intelligent and intuitive flow to the mat, gaining a deeper understanding of the purpose of practice and how to effectively personalize it, and how to harness your greatest powers - mind, body, and spirit - in order to draw the best out in others.

This module will include a two-week haitus from the Sunday class time to give you extra time for the reading requirements and homework, and to attend the Yoga Conference in Toronto. Going to the conference is entirely up to you and not required, but this module has been structured to allow you to take advanage of it by freeing up that weekend.

Dates: Sundays 8am-6pm February 28th through April 18th, 2010

No classes -

March 28th to let you attend the Yoga Conference (www.theyogaconference.com/toronto2010)

April 4th due to Easter Holiday

Cost: $1150.00 + GST 
DISCOUNT: 20% for previous Module graduates

— REGISTRATION OPEN — CLOSES February 14th, 2010

Download the reading list

Does my potential need to be limitless to be effective? I think that message burdens people with dishonest expectations. I am so weary of these head-in-sand prophets telling me how anything I can imagine I can make happen. Really? Okay, I imagine myself to be a horse. Yeah, exactly. What if I just have great potential, or even good potential? Most of us don’t actualize even a fraction of our potential energy anyway, and why? Are we all THAT afraid to find out that we’re limited beings? More limited, perhaps, than we want to believe ourselves to be? Uh - time to get over yourself and get in the game.

So how do we discover our actual potential? I think the only way to really know is to just keep actualizing - turning potential energy into kinetic energy by DOING instead of just WISHING or THINKING ABOUT things: tapas. And this means we need to be ready to hit our limits and accept them: santosa. Not resign to them, but be honest about them: satya. Then determine to keep challenging them until they change: abhyasa. That’s yoga, baby.

I’ve cranked up my drive to turn my own potential energy kinetic lately. I am throwing myself into the deep end in every sense, really putting my heart out there for the first time in … longer than I can remember. Risking more than I’m comfortable with. It’s kind of freaking me out, but I have let my comfort zone bloat and I know it. Time to get off the beach and catch a new wave.

As any surfer can tell you, surfing (once your’e in the water) is about 75% paddling, 15% waiting, 9% trying and 1% making it totally worth it with a sweet catch. This life is my one day at the beach, and I’ve been waiting more than my 15%. Time’s up. Time to get back in the game.

Now halfway through the book, I’m contemplating why people would go through the effort of making this life-altering commitment to align to a yogic philosophy and practice. It’s not always easy. One tends to become aware of a lot of one’s crap previously and conveniently hidden. Blech.

Michael presents the answer yoga offers: Practicing yoga can end our suffering. Yoga tells us that suffering is due to ignorance, misapprehension, fear of death, and a constant clinging to desires or resistance to aversions. If we can shed light on these sources of suffering in our own lives (become ‘enlightened’) then we can liberate ourselves from that cycle of suffering. Sounds pretty good, no?

Becoming enlightened involves a practice of becoming aware of habitual behaviours, detaching from hardened ways of being, and adopting a new perspective on life that encourages us to see the things we previously thought of as permanent (our bodies, our habits, our relationships, ‘the way life is’, etc) as in fact impermanent, always changing, fluid, transient. By the practice of yoga we bring flexibility back to all aspect of ourselves and reintroduce the opportunity for change because we realize that elements of life are actually always changing. 

But moving from old habits to new ones means going through a process of seeing our ignorance, fear, clinging and resistance for what it is. The stories we tell ourselves about why our ways of being are justifiable cease to work. We come to realize that we’re just kind of full of crap. This part can suck.

As a psychotherapist, Michael offers us a helping hand for this stage: Psychotherapists, like yogis, understand that we became who we are because we needed to function in the world before we really learned how. As creatures of habit, we tend to repeat what we’ve already done and thus reinforce the behaviour, so even in the face of new information we tend only to see what we expect and do only what we’ve done before. Yoga calls this samskara - the continual re-grooving of a pattern. Neuropsychology calls it neural patterning - the strengthening of certain neural pathways in the brain, often at the expense of other pathways that atrophy over time without use. The dog you feed grows stronger, if you will.

In other words, I am not inherently broken or bad. I’ve just been using my tools over and over without skill.

And the same goes for you. You are not broken or bad. You have just been using your tools without skill.

This realiziation can have a dramatic effect on how you can interact with yourself should you decide to take this yogic path. As you practice there will be such a strong temptation to be disappointed in some way with the gap you perceive between who you are and who you want to be. Understand this: Who you are (or who you perceive yourself to be) has come about because of genuine misunderstanding and lack of proper information. Don’t let this concept void your responsibility: You need the ability to respond to the change you will encounter. Instead, allow this understanding to help you see yourself with infinite compassion.

You formed most of your perceptions and coping skills as a child, so incredibly ill-equipped and inexperienced in the world. Forgive yourself for your stumbling thus far if it has fallen short of what you would like to be. Start now to let go of habits born of ignorance. Every movement towards compassion you make creates the possibility for liberation - for you, for anyone, for everyone. We all fell short. Exhale and let it go. Inhale and start anew.

But this year was also one of imbalance. Who am I kidding? There has been some form of imbalance from the get-go. At first it was induced by survival. Making $500-600/mo trying to get Pranalife off the ground led to relationship breakdowns, living in basements of sympathetic supporters and daily diets of oatmeal and miso soup. Not super healthy, nor was it a recipe for early retirement. But I was waking up every morning loving what I was doing for a living, passionate though thin on the ‘abundance’ aspect.

Then came the steady growth of stability. One client led to two, to four, to ten, to a healthy weekly teaching schedule and an income that allowed me to upgrade from my 20-year-old rusted out Camry and wander into the organic food section again, even if only for a few select items. But entrepreneurs have a mantra: grow or die. So during this time of appreciating having my ‘daily bread’ again, I prepared for a growth spurt.

Enter 2009 and said growth spurt. Ideas continually became realities: a yoga and cooking retreat to Tuscany, a full crew for Yoga Teacher Training, monthly Vine & Vinyasa events, full classes and workshops, and late in the game the opportunity to open my own studio space at last, with a beautiful and brilliant business partner and friend. Somewhat overwhelmed but aware of the pivotal nature of these changes, I’ve run with it all.

However, creating an enterprise by one’s self generally means one thing: all work and no play. This is an especially easy imbalance to create when one’s work feels like play. I love the philosophy, practice, and application of yoga. I love working with people going from good to great. I love learning the ropes of entrepreneurism and small business. I love creating and innovating and living new adventures. But one day not so long ago I realized that I was counting any day that had me working less than 6 hours as a ‘day off’ and thought to myself, “Wow, that ain’t good.”

So as I sit and watch the dazzling Alberta snow fall soft and crisp on spruce, poplar and ash I consider what 2010 will be for Pranalife Yoga. I believe what I’m building (and building with the support of so many great people around me) is important: offering a space to reflect, try, change and grow. Offering a practice and philosophy to make one fit for life, to continually perfect the art of being human. Yoga is such an excellent combination of practical and philosophical. And the experiences Pranalife Yoga fosters create a sense of well-being, compassion, humour, enlightening up, community and evolution.

This coming year I am more confident and capable to create this growth than ever before. And I’m ready. Like a seedling compelled towards sunlight while still buried under soil, I push upward somewhat instinctively. But now, as I build business plans and consider in-floor heating and renewed teaching schedules, I also contemplate this constant imbalance that has been woven into every stage of this process. How can I be the example of what it is I teach in this aspect? Is balance a realistic goal when I consider all that I’m planning?

We shall see. The coming weeks are full of downtime out West combined with lots of hours sorting through 2009 in preparation for 2010. One thing I know for certain, though, is that this work is regretless. Whether I find my sense of balance or not, the journey toward it is in itself worthwhile. Perhaps I practice yoga more intrinsically than I’ve considered…

Pranalife yoga presents Vine & Vinyasa 

December’s Theme: “Wine & Chocolate”

The next Vine & Vinyasa experience includes 40-45 minutes of vinyasa flow yoga with Advanced Yoga Instructor Asia Nelson, followed by a divine indulgence in wine & chocolate, expertly matched by Wildcraft sommelier Chris Clark.

Where: STUDiO ENERGi (www.studioenergi.com). 60 Bathurst Drive Units 14-15, Waterloo

When: Friday, December 4^th from 7:30-9:30pm

How much: $40.00 per person with advanced registration, or $50.00 at the door. Students $35.00 with valid ID.

To register simply Contact Us and provide your full name & the names and email addresses of anyone coming with you. Payment can be made online or in person the night of the event.

Take sensation further.

Pranalife yoga presents Vine & Vinyasa 

December’s Theme: “Wine & Chocolate”

The next Vine & Vinyasa experience includes 40-45 minutes of vinyasa flow yoga with Advanced Yoga Instructor Asia Nelson, followed by a divine indulgence in wine & chocolate, expertly matched by Wildcraft sommelier Chris Clark.

Where: STUDiO ENERGi (www.studioenergi.com). 60 Bathurst Drive Units 14-15, Waterloo

When: Friday, December 4^th from 7:30-9:30pm

How much: $40.00 per person with advanced registration, or $50.00 at the door. Students $35.00 with valid ID.

To register simply Contact Us and provide your full name & the names and email addresses of anyone coming with you. Payment can be made online or in person the night of the event.

Take sensation further.

  Technorati tag: GUQ5KEBDYHH6

I believe that sometimes we simply need to take a small step, like I did with this journey with Deborah, to make some very big differences. Whether those differences come or not isn’t up to us, but creating the possibility for change - that IS up to us. I hope this journey has been one way for you to do that in your own life. It certainly has been a tool for change in mine.

To give a blog’s version of “namaste” to this adventure we’ve shared, I think it’s apropos to invite Deborah to lead it for us. Here is her video, giving her final thoughts on the 30 Day Yoga Journey. Namaste.

Can’t see the video? Watch it here.