Making a choice

I try not to post anything negative online as I feel it’s so easy to do and most of the internet has become places of people just babbling negative and ignorant junk.  While it does happen, I do truly try hard to think and rethink about something before posting and sharing with the world.

Yesterday I was flying to the beautiful Turks and Caicos with a quick layover in Miami. The first flight was forced to land at a different airport, but just a 20min away. After a long delay there, we were bounced back to the first airport, Miami. On arrival I was informed from an app on my phone that my next flight was cancelled. I then had to go wait in a line to see what the story was. That line took 5 hours. No joke, it took 5 hours. 5 hours of standing, no sitting. 5 hours of watching people be “human beings” and try to cut lines, or try complain to staff, or just feel that they were generally more important than everyone else. Human nature! 5 hours to not post a negative comment even though it would have been so. 5 hours to sit and be. (with the occasional email to my family members updating them, though I did try me best to not be too big a whining twat with them). 5 hours to learn from whatever is being shown to us.

When I finally got through the line and was told my flight would be tomorrow, I had to then go to another location and get in another line to make sure my luggage was still here. They told me that my bag would be held till tomorrow and it was already checked for me. Cool! Except… my clothiers are in that. So this translated into, tomorrow you will not have clean clothes. Again, could be much worse. 

I may not be making it sound as horrible as it was, but it wasn’t great. It seemed as if everyone in the airport was unhappy, the thousands of people stranded for the night from weather cancellations as well as the staff doing their best to be helpful but getting mostly attitude.  

On the taxi ride to the hotel (I got the second to last room available at one place after trying numerous others) all I could think about was rolling out my yoga mat to have a safe and tranquil place. I made a choice, but really yoga taught me to make that choice. I could be unhappy at any little thing or I could be happy with everything. I chose the latter, what do you choose?

Yoga Burp, Release

I recently took a few day vacation from the Tea Fields of Sri Lanka to go down to the south. I had a friend who was vacationing in Mirissa on the southern coast and I wanted to visit her as well as go surfing. While there I realized that in the last few weeks I had put a little extra baggage on me and should probably work on that.  My daily walks and yoga sessions had been getting a little shorter in duration, if existent at all.  So now that I'm back I've started to be more present with this matter.  Yesterday I did a deeper stomach workout in the middle and end of my yoga practice.  Afterwards something felt off in me.   There was a sense of nausea through out the day, something I don't usually have.  In the evening when doing another yoga session, I started to burp. I couldn't stop it. Burps were coming and kept on coming. Luckily, just this gaseous feeling and no nasty intestinal flavors coming alongside with.  All of a sudden this big heavy burp came from somewhere deep inside me.  It was like nothing I've ever felt in a burp before. It brought tears to my eyes. Then more tears and I realized I was mildly crying.  I also realized I felt immediately lighter and more airy.  This burp was something stored inside of me from who-knows-when.  And now it was gone.  It wasn't just a burp, it was a storage of emotions and feelings trapped on a cellular level somewhere in stomach region. Through the abdominal workout I was able to lodge it's release from the structure where it was held and it slowly made it's way north to find it's way out.

Yoga can be transformational in many ways. When we first start to practice, we feel a greater sense of self worth and happiness. We feel healthier and more confident. And we only grow from there.  As we progress along the way, we start to learn more about our bodies from a subtle intuitive way. We have emotional breakthroughs and breakdowns in our yoga practice.  I've seen many a person in a long and deep pigeon pose hold brought to tears as the memories that one may store in their hip and sacroiliac regions start to release from their cellular frame and escape the imprisonment of the body. For me, it was a simple stomach routine which was all that was needed to start the catalyst in motion to help release whatever stored memories were holding me down and get me burping for joy!

Yoga at 4000M

Though not the most flattering of photos, one of the greatest things that I was able to do this season was  to teach a yoga class at the Bumdra camp. 4000 meters above sea level and on a rather cold morning, though I have to suspect that most mornings are cold up there, we ran through some basic sun salutations as well as other more simple but much needed stretches.  Garbed up in numerous layers that would soon be stripped down as the internal tapas, or heat, was built up. It proved to be a very nice flow class and definitely a yoga class that the guests, nor I, will soon forget.

Meditation Point

I've written a few times about the Khamsum Yuelley Namgyal Chorten in Punakha as it is one of my most favorite places in the country. On one day this past autumn I hiked to the chorten carrying my Manduka yoga mat and my very old bura, a raw silk fabric usually used for womens skirts but which I use as a shawl. I laid the mat down, did some simple stretching and then sat down for a good meditation session.  The environment proves perfect for this sort of activity as there is just something in the air here that screams SPIRITUALITY. (and that is coming from someone who isn't too spiritual)

It was a clean, clear and happy meditation period and well worth the hike out there.  Looking forward to more time there next season. :)

Yoga While We Wait

This is a post from a few months back, but I never got around to putting it up.

I was waiting for my friend Mei to get done with her 3 day trek from Thimphu to Paro and went to go meet her and her guide at the end. I had been designing a yoga mat bag made from local textile designs to fit my slightly wider mat so happened to have my mat in the car. Since there was an unknown time to wait I thought I'd lay the mat out to get some yoga out in the nature.  While my self portrait doesn't nearly do justice to anything I hope you can get a sense of how nice it was to be in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by beautiful nature (and grazing horses) practicing yoga.  I had hoped to get more yoga in nature and photos of it during my tenure in Bhutan but most of the time I'm there it's too cold to practice outside.

A yoga mat story

One of the nicest parts about being back home in SF was going to my storage space and finding my old yoga mat. Those of you who have a regular yoga practice are familiar with the attachment one can have with their mat, an ironic thought as part of yoga deals with non-attachment. Generally when one starts practicing yogasana they won't buy a mat but will use what the gym or studio has. When they get more involved the first mat will be bought, the standard cheaper generic foam yoga mat that you see everywhere. As the practice progress and one gets deeper involved they will usually upgrade to a premium mat. 

When I moved to San Francisco in the winter of 2007, my parents bought a Chanukah gift for me of a new Manduka mat, bag and towel package. I had wanted a Manduka for a while, since trying a friends out. However, they were expensive. Thankfully I have good parents and as the New Year rolled around I started my Manduka experience.  The thing with Manduka mats is that they are truly transformative yoga mats.  A little heavier than the generic mat but made from recycled rubber and earth conscious materials, they last. This was a problem I was having with my mats before, they wouldn't last. I'd tear through them around 3 months in. It was annoying and getting costly, but my Manduka didn't have this problem. In fact flash forward almost 5 years later and my mat is still in near impeccable shape. 

I had poured so many hours into my mat, so much progress, regress, happy times, sad times, transformative times. Whenever I had an issue in the "outside" world I could come home to my apartment, roll out my mat and either do my asana practice or just sit and meditate there.  It provided a firm and safe place for me. I poured copious amounts of energy into that mat, and it always supported me and gave back to my body and soul.

This is why I was so happy to come to my storage place and reconnect with my mat, because in a way it was reconnecting with a part myself.

Manduka has made a newer style of mat that is a little lighter and wider and so I recently purchased this as my wide chest appreciates a wider base to spread out and the lighter weight makes it easier to travel with.  I've lent my old mat to my former yoga partner and good friend, Steven, who was using another popular brand of mats but also found himself tearing through them every few months. Part of yoga is also non-hoarding, so why should the mat sit in storage when other people can experience the joy and happiness that something that seems so trivial can bring.  For me, my Manduka improved both my yoga practice and me. I hope to bring and share this improvement with others. After all it's the little steps that we take that make the whole big picture a better place.

While I miss my old mat, I'm absolutely loving my wider mat and how this is also transforming my practice and me.  If you're interested in learning more about these mats, or want to talk more about how to get out of the rut and take your yogasana practice to the next plateau, please contact me.

love and light.

Au Revoir, again

To readers of this blog you may know me as different things. Traveler, food lover, explorer,  photo journalist (of a sort.)  But I'm also a yogi.   I'll be leaving the US on August  31st to spend three weeks in Ubud, Bali, Indonesia to go deeper into my yoga studies and practice.  After that I'll be heading back to Bhutan for 3 months to teach yoga. I'm also hoping to be able to practice more of the meditation knowledge that I learned in Burma in the rich clean and untapped nature of the ancient kingdom.

I will do my best to update this blog with stories, photos, stream of conscious ramblings, and decent content aimed to add a smile to your days.

Thank you to all who made the first 2.5 years on the road so memorable and happy. Thanks for all those who welcomed me back to the US with open arms, open couches/beds, full plates and giant hugs. Your love and kindness has filled me up with more than you can know. Every day I am amazed at how lucky I am to have such good people in my life. I genuinely feel like the luckiest man in the world.  I am excited and nervous to get back on the road and though I plan to come back soon and ideally "root" down here in the US I can't say so or when for one can never really know what future has lying ahead for them.

Many blessings, thanks and so much love from all of me (and more) to all of you (and more)

namaste
peace peace peace

ADR