najayama yoga

najayama yoga
artwork by michelle bellerose

NAJAYAMA YOGA: THE YOGA OF ALERT OPPORTUNITY

I'm a novice yoga teacher (CYT200) involved in an on-going synthesis of structural anatomy, bodywork, spontaneous movement and shaking, posture strikes, and lone wolf exploration with qi (differentiated somatic energy) and reiki (undifferentiated universal energy).

The goal is not perfection, glory, or achievement, but long burn presence in the moment, ease in the body and the response-ability of mind which create the space and grace for growth, change, and understanding.

bhujangalika: not the usual music for yoga

michelle bellerose is a certified yoga and qiqong teacher and composer of original music for movement and restoration. advocating a slower, more mindful approach to mat work and the self-responsible harnessing of inner serpent force. the practice, principle and cultivation of this mindful harnessing she's called NAJAYAMA YOGA. she also writes a blog on holistic arts and sciences called MAVERICK MEDICINE BABE.

Friday, May 20, 2011

one man's garbage is another man's treasure

given the rapid expansion of commercial yoga venues, it goes without saying the marketplace's been flooded with novice instructors whose expertise may be limited to a gym-class-style talking thru of asana, sometimes poorly thought out in terms of flow and overall strategy, and absent key alignment cues. as disappointing as this is for the yoga consumer, its in many ways a far more forgivable offense than the hubris of adopting the posture of wise guruji in front of the crowds. if you look at the situation in context through history, you'll see the more wise and all-seeing your role, the more likely, in the long view and with the right situational stress, that you'll armour/resist the world when it delivers its inconvenient reversals.

when you're expert, there's no room to be wrong or in doubt. that's the trouble with a stance of power toward anything, but particularly information. power needs to be right most of the time to maintain its internal pecking orders. add to this that we know from history that power will twist information and circumstance to suit its need to be right or to live out a plan of action it thinks best. domination, even dressed up in a hari krishna kill-em-with-kindness patina, is still a violence done to free people.

the role play of power only ever creates temporary stability, as sustainable growth, learning or change don't tend to occur autocratically. growth, learning and change happen in crisis, which is, by definition, an encounter... the need to be right always walks hand in hand with the need for crisis. think nationstates (need to be right) and war (crisis) as a most obvious example...

still.

in zen they speak of beginner's mind. it's the opposite of expert.

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