Spring Day Yoga

We would like to thank everyone who came to our spring yoga flow class on Saturday, 1 September 2018, at Body Works Gym in Vaalpark. We appreciate the support and we look forward to seeing you on your mats every second Saturday. Please make sure to keep an eye on our website under events for our upcoming dates as well as on our Facebook Page.

This weekend we focused alot on Sun Salutation A, a foundational sequence we use to build our sequences in a Vinyasa class. Below are the poses that make up Sun Salutation A.

Images copyright Tummee.com

Yama: Satya

Satya or ‘truthfulness’ is the second of the Yamas of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Patanjali considers satya as a restraint from falsehood in one's action (body), words (speech, writing), or feelings / thoughts (mind). It is the virtuous restraint from falsehood and distortion of reality in one's expressions and actions. The word ‘sat’ literally translates as ‘true essence’ or ‘true nature’ and therefore satya can be seen as complete honesty towards yourself and towards your fellow man. Satya can be interpreted and brought into life in many different ways, on your mat, in your yoga practice or in your meditation practice, but today I want to talk about satya in its simplest form, according to me, and that it to not tell a lie.

Here is the thing about a lie, you can tell it to harm someone or to deflect harm from yourself and sometimes, inadvertently, a lie can harm someone whilst deflecting harm, or perceived harm, from yourself. Due to this dualistic nature of a lie, one would never know whether a lie will accidentally backfire on you when the little bugger escapes your lips.

I am going to be brutally honest today and tell you something that most people only guess at; I have body image issues. Paired with the aforementioned is a lack of self-control especially when it comes to sweet things. When we have sweet things in the house, be it chocolate, candies or nougat, I will devour as much of it as I can. Afterwards, I feel like a total failure and even though I know that I am going to feel that way before I start wolfing down refined sugar, I lack the discipline to abstain from this little “pleasure”. I weigh 76kg and I am 186cm tall, which gives me a BMI of 22 (so I am fairly skinny), yet I have this image that I am always slightly overweight especially in the abdominal and facial regions. It has become a running joke in our household that I am “fat” or that I am going to be fat if I do not stop gorging myself on sugar. This situation has arisen due to my constant remarking on it and Michael, in good spirit, joins in on the fun.

Okay, so the backdrop is set, and I have told you about my fear of getting fat and my inability to say no to refined sugar; and this is where my story regarding truthfulness commences. We have a drinks cabinet where Michael hoards chocolate and nougat for the odd, very odd, occasion when he craves a little bit of sugar. Every now and again I venture into the cabinet to silence the little monster in my head who keeps screaming, like a petulant child, that it needs sugar. This happened yesterday, and I had two little pieces of nougat after lunch, discarded the plastic wrappings in the recycling bin and forgot about my little lapse in discipline… until this morning. I was busy making the bed when Michael marched into the bedroom with the box of nougat and asked me if I had any of it because he found wrappings in the recycling. In an attempt to avoid, what I perceived to be embarrassment, I immediately said no, which made him suspect our domestic worker. This is the logical conclusion if the perpetrator wasn’t me and now he wants to have a conversation with her regarding this little “transgression”. I told a lie, to avoid hearing “this is why you’re getting fat”, in jest I might add, and now there will be ramifications for my little fabrication.

The added embarrassment of admitting I told a lie, prevented me from confessing to him that it she is not to blame from the nougat’s disappearing act. I even tried to convince him not to talk to her about the incident, for obvious reasons, and gave him a couple of whys and wherefores to persuade him out of his planned course of action. My extempore untruth turned into a monster with the ability to cause harm to others, which was totally unanticipated.

He left for work hell bent on having a talk to her which got me to thinking about satya and the repercussions of lies, no matter how small or insignificant they might seem to you in the moment. You might tell someone that they are not gaining weight, to assuage their fears, which could lead them to be content with an unhealthy lifestyle. You can tell someone “I’m fine, I promise” when you are a complete mess. You can say “just one more episode of Game of Thrones” and binge watch a whole season. “It’s me not you”, when it is obviously them. The list goes on and on and the little white lies could hurt you, or it could hurt someone else without you even knowing it.

So the moral of the story? Don’t lie bitches, no matter how white it seems in the moment.

Namaste and nougat!

Yama: Brahmacharya

I have spent a lot of time lately contemplating the yamas and the niyamas especially, primarily, because we are discussing them in our yoga teacher traing. So I thought I'd put my thoughts to the proverbial paper and discuss Brahmacharya. It is the fourth of the yamas, and often translated as 'celibacy' or 'chastity', wich makes it one of my least favourite yamas. It is meant, traditionally, to encourage people who practice yoga to conserve their sexual energy and rather use it to progress further on their yoga path.

Brahmacharya actually translates to behaviour which leads to Brahman, the one true god, the supreme spirit. However, if we consider this yama as the right use of energy. The question then becomes, how do we spend our energy? What do we persue in our daily lives which waste these energies? We pursue external desires which would grant us momentary happiness but they are ultimately fleeting. We stress, worry and concern ourselves with the going-ons of our everyday lives. We worry whether we are fit, lean, skinny or flexible enough. We worry whether everyone we meet like us, and we put on a facade and pretend we are something and someone we are not. In the end these worries are futile and rather than waste our energy on them we should focus our energy on the things that matter in our lives; friendships, relationships, our yoga practise, and family.

Another aspect in our lives that we keep forgetting about because we are so consumed with being busy and productive is our own bodies. I know this going to sound cliched, but we only have one body, and if we do not take care of it, it will fail and make our lives exponentially more difficult. In the modern day and age we are so busy pursuing the pleasures that would give us material satisfaction that we do not treat our bodies the way we should. We eat junk food because we do not have the time to cook a healthy meal. We veg out on the couch and watch television because we do not have the energy to get on our mat and practice our yoga. Eventually this leads to an unhappy body which in turn leads to an unhappy mind.

How do you spend your energy? How do you look after your body? How will you interpret and apply Bramhacharya in your life, in your practice?

Get on your mat, get hooked!

Namaste and spend your energy well!

Virabhadrasana

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away lived a bloke named Daksha. Daksha was the son of Lord Brahma, who created Daksha from his right thumb, he wasn’t a pretty fellow, he was fat and had the head of an ibex-like creature. Shame, probably why he was a bit of an ass.

Daksha, was a very virile ibex-like dude, almost like the Zuma of Hinduism, he was large, was a “great” king and had between 24 and 89 daughters. Well, he was more like Steve Hoffmeyer then, because like Steve, nobody knows how many children there are.

One of Daksha’s daughters’ was Sati, whom was married to Lord Shiva to the immense ire of Daksha. See, Sati wanted one thing in life, she wanted to be married to Shiva, but Daksha forbade it because he saw Shiva as a dirty, roaming ascetic and he reviled Shiva’s cohort of goblins and ghouls. However, Sati disobeyed her Father and married Shiva anyway and found that he was a loving and doting husband.

Daksha organised a huge yaga (or ritual sacrifice) and intentionally avoided Shiva and Sati. Shiva discouraged his wife and told her not to go, because they were not invited. It seems though that Sati was a real daddy’s girl and the parental bond made her ignore all social etiquette and she went nonetheless. Daksha was a real douche and he snubbed her and insulted her in front of all the guests…big mistake on his part, we shall see later why this is my dear readers. She was a little on the dramatic side, our dear Sati, because she was unable to bear further insult, and ran into the Sacrificial fire and immolated herself. Like the roof the roof the roof is on fire right?!

Shiva, upon learning about the terrible incident wasn’t sad about his wife, no, our hero was furious and in his wrath invoked Virabhadra and Bhadrakali by plucking a lock of hair and thrashing it on the ground. I mean if you can rip out your own hair then you must be fuming, I pluck my eyebrows every now and again and that crap is painful. Alas, I digress, Shiva said to Virabhadra: "Lead my army against Daksha and destroy his sacrifice".

On this direction of Shiva, Virabhadra appeared with Shiva's ganas (or attendants) in the midst of Daksha's assembly like a storm and broke the sacrificial vessels, polluted the offerings, insulted the Brahmin priests, trampled on Indra, broke the staff of Yama and scattered the gods on every side. Angry bloke right?

Lord Vishnu could not let his devotee – Daksha be mortified by Virabhadra, so he got on his Garuda (like Garudasana, you know “eagle pose” nudge nudge wink wink) armed with his conch, discus and bow and arrows and rushed out to give battle to Virabhadra to the great joy of the sacred assembly of victims. They fought and fought, as the legends states, like two wild and mad elephants and all three worlds trembled with their movements! It was a long and drawn out battle that caused earth-quakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, landslides and storms and outbreaks of fire.

Seeing that they were evenly matched Vishnu decided to take his life once and for all by using his invincible Discus - Sudrasana - feared in all the worlds for its efficacy. So, twirling it around his right index finger, he let loose the mighty Sudarsana and it roared into the intervening space with such tremendous momentum and acceleration that it flew cleaving the air with incandescent jets of flame spouting off tangentially from its thousand revolving teeth. Seeing Vishnu's Discus approaching him thus, Virabhadra coolly opened his vast mouth and swallowed it at one gulp; and was none the worse for it.

Lord Vishnu was astonished at this miracle and was filled with admiration for Virabhadra. Instantly he flew to his side in great ecstasy and praised his erstwhile opponent thus:

" 0 Virabhadra Mahavira! There is none to equal you here nor in the seven worlds! None can now stop you from punishing the wicked Daksha. You were born of the body of Shiva himself to punish these evildoers; and I see that none can oppose you nor come in your way. Who is there to stand equal to you in might and strength, when my invincible discus-which is capable of powdering a diamond-hard mountain - has not made a scratch on you! It has disappeared into your body now, and seems as though it had never existed! It is a wonder how you swallowed this all-destructive and up to-now invincible discus as though it were a ball of sweet! There is none to oppose you now. you may punish Daksha to your heart's content. Daksha, the enemy of Lord Shiva, caused his own daughter to burn herself; and must certainly now meet his own doom.”

Brimming with anger, Virabhadra beheaded Daksha and marched along with his army to Mount Kailash to testify the completion of his assigned task.

So the point of me telling you this story… Virabhadra was one mean ass mo-fo, and his strength and skill should reflect every time you go into the asanas which bear his name.

You can visualise the story of Virabhadra and Daksha everytime you go into these poses, thusly:

Virabhadra's first aspect, (Vīrabhadrāsana I) is his arrival, with swords in both hands, thrusting his way up through the earth from below.

In his second aspect, (Vīrabhadrāsana II) he sights his opponent, Daksha.

And in his third aspect (Vīrabhadrāsana III), moving swiftly and precisely, he decapitates Daksha with his sword.

Namaste and be a bad ass Warrior!