BARBARA BORIS Yoga

Dear Barbara Boris – IYNAUS ID# 1103, (Iyengar Yoga National Association of the United States)

We are happy to inform you that your application for the
2010 IYNAUS Assessment has been accepted.

Your recommending teachers have expressed confidence that you are ready for Assessment at this level. As you continue with your preparations, remember the words of B.K.S. Iyengar, “Teaching is a difficult art, but it is the best service you can do to humanity.”

We wish you a pleasant and successful Assessment experience.

Your venue assignment is as follows:
Assessment Level: Teacher in Training
Date: 9/17/2010
Venue: Austin, TX

Dear Woodstock (Iyengar) Yoga Students,
Please stay posted about upcoming practice classes
that I will offer to prepare for my first Assessment.
Thank you for all your support!

p.s. (Iyengar) is in parenthesis, because I am not officially allowed to use it until the Assesment process is complete. But now I am officially on my way!

Just in case you got one in this week’s classes, here is the latest “science” from the New York Times.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/phys-ed-can-pickle-juice-stop-muscle-cramps/

“…Dr. Miller suspects that that mechanism is exhaustion, either directly or through biochemical processes that accompany fatigue. Certain mechanisms within muscles have been found, in animal and limited human studies, he says, to start misfiring when a muscle is extremely tired. Small nerves that should keep the muscle from overcontracting malfunction, and the muscle bunches when it should relax. Pickle juice may work…”

I don’t know what it means, but twice now there were more MEN than WOMEN in Tuesday Night’s Yoga Class at Satya Yoga. And I’m not even wearing low cut tops! Kudos to the: Writer, Orthopedic Surgeon, Sanskrit Professor, Teacher Trainee, Super Yogi, Zen Arborist and the High School Student who attend regularly. You are much appreciated. Go Dutchess County!

Kudos also to the Woodstock Men, you were remembered as well: Furniture Designer, Therapist, Photographer, Buddhist Psychiatrist, Scientist, Architect (x3), Carpenters. YAY MEN!

The “Feminization of Yoga” is an interesting phenomenon. Yogis were traditionally men. What is happening to the science of yoga with all of us women teaching? Shakti yes, but what else? I don’t have a full answer. Are we women ‘teaching like men’ or has the whole idea of ‘what yoga is’ changed? Totally open for comment.

I think you all know by now about the ‘psycho 21 pit-bull dog hoarder neighbor’ that I had to deal with last summer. If not, sometime I’ll tell you the long drawn-out story. (The link above is an adjunct horror story about the same person.) It isn’t pretty. If you want to HELP STOP THIS MADNESS, and more like it out there, please sponsor my brother-in-law, David Lytle, who works for the Oregon Humane Society. It seems there are even MORE hoarders out in that part of the states. ?!? I just don’t get it. He has a really great video. Please sponsor him with $10 for the Doggie Dash 2010 and put WOODSTOCK YOGA next to your name. That way he’ll be the coolest Doggie Dasher out there! PS, he likes the Grateful Dead, so he’s an honorary Woodstocker.

OMG, how did I get this!?! I just found a copy of the B.K.S. Iyengar yoga rarity Sparks of Divinity in my 1000s of books up here by my desk! Here is a review of the book by Judith Lasater, from Yoga Journal, 1976 http://bit.ly/dmJgN7
This book is totally out of print. It is a compilation of BKS Iyengars sayings from 1959-1975.

I will Tweet/FaceBook a quote daily from it. Lucky us!

The first one in the book:

Enjoy in all you do, then you feel you are free from the self.

B.K.S. Iyengar, 1959, Sparks of Divinity.

See the NY Times article: Yoga’s New Wave about Yoga to The People studio in NYC  http://nyti.ms/cS9Mtj. Article asks: Donation Classes v. Superstar Yoga. “Is [Mr.] Iyengar the Bono of yoga?” Donation is a good model if you have a large student population and an adequate savings account. Dana is a always the preferred method of compensation. Learn your Sanskrit words! Click on the link. Maybe I need a “Tip Jar” on my website. With 6 studios in Woodstock alone (population approximately 5000) how many students can one expect to come to class?

DEVASTATING EARTHQUAKE STRIKES NEAR CHOGYAM TRUNGPA’S MONASTERY

Buddhism 101. OM. Even as Yogis, you should all know who Chogyam Trungpa is and why he was important to Buddhism in the west. Then please support the rebuilding and relief effort in his home monastery. Here is the latest news on the disaster there.

http://www.konchok.org/earthquakeinTibet.htm

A huge earthquake struck Jyekundo yesterday, the closest city to the Surmang Dutsi Til monastery, where Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was the supreme abbot before leaving Tibet. The initial quake of 7.1 magnitude was followed by several aftershocks of magnitude 5 or more. Most communications with Jyekundo are now down but first reports indicate heavy damage and large numbers of people killed or injured. Reports say that possibly as many as 90% of the homes in the city have been destroyed. Trungpa Rinpoche’s brother, Damcho Tenphel Rinpoche, often resides in Jyekundo. It is not known if he was in Jyekundo at the time of the quake. He was not living in the city a month ago. At this time, it is unknown how the monastery itself has been affected. There are confirmed reports that buildings at nearby Thrangu Monastery have collapsed, and several people have died there.

The Konchok Foundation — started by Chogyam Trungpa’s eldest son, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, his widow, Lady Diana Mukpo, and others to rebuild the monastic college at Surmang and provide support there — is gathering information on the disaster. Also working to gather information is the Surmang Foundation, of which Lee Weingrad, a senior student of Chogyam Trungpa, is the director, which provides medical care in the region. Both organizations are setting up funds for disaster relief and will work closely with people in the region.

Trungpa’s Books I recommend:

• Journey Without Goal
• Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
• Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior
• Meditation in Action

Here is the excerpt I was referring to in class this week by Christopher Isherwood. Yes, the Author of Berlin Stories (Caberet) was a Vedantist. And a good one at that.

From Ramamkrishna and His Disciples by Christopher Isherwood ©1965

In these days of commercial and political propaganda which makes use of subliminal indoctrination and the hypnotic repetition of slogans, it shoudl no longer be necessary to prove, even to an atheist, that japa [repetition of mantra] is effective. If a television advertisement can so permeate the consciousness of a community that the little children sing it in the streets – if some demonstrable lie about a neighbouring country can, by being repeated often enough, drive a whole nation war-mad – then how dare anyone claim that the repetition of the name and idea of God will have no effect upon the individual who practises it? We are creatures of reverie, not of reason. We spend a very small proportion of our time thinking logical, consecutive thoughts. It is within the reverie that our passions and prejudices – often so terrible in their consequences – build themselves up, almost unnoticed, out of slogans, newspaper headlines, chance-heard words of fear and greed and hate, which have slipped into our consciousness through our unguarded eyes and ears. Our reverie expresses what we are, at any given moment. The mantra, by introducing God into the reverie, must produce profound subliminal changes. These may not be apparent for some time, but, sooner or later, they will inevitably appear –first in the prevailing mood and disposition of the individual; then n a gradual change of character.

© Martin Brading

Happy Hanuman Jayanti!

Hanuman shows us the unlimited power that lies unused in each one of us if we have faith & belief in “God.”
(I write it in quotes, so you can use the “God” of your choice.) JAI SHRI RAM!

http://hinduism.about.com/od/lordhanuman/a/hanuman.htm

Video of our President saying how much he likes Hanuman:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KQIWVw2RPA&feature=player_embedded

Contents of Obama's Pocket 2008

And a picture of what he carries in his pocket (from 2008, if you haven’t seen it yet!)
http://www.time.com/time/politics/whitehouse/photos/0,27424,1811278,00.html

Is Barak Obama a Secret Hindu?
From my favorite India commentary site
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/005238.html

JAI HANUMAN!   JAI SHRI RAM!   JAI BAJARANGA BALI!

… it WILL be a good class, just don’t expect to have much of a conversation with me. Teaching karmas kicked in this morning. We will be working with the back ribs: lengthening, broadening, taking them in for preparation for backbends. Mostly standing poses today. Do come!