1. You can go almost anywhere in the world and find a yoga studio. Before you've even left home, just give a quick shout-out to your Omies on FB and you'll have a personalized yogi Rolodex of studios and teachers to check out while on your travels. That's how this summer I was blessed to meet and share space with such amazing teachers as: Rockne White at Reflexions Yoga in Penticton; Dana Skoglund of Mission Yoga in Kelowna; Melissa Kavanagh of Shanti Yoga and Elissa Gumushel at The Studio in Nelson, BC. Better than Expedia or Google by quantum leaps.
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| With Dana Skoglund at a studio in a garage, Mission Yoga in Kelowna, BC |
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| At The Studio in Nelson, BC with Anusara goddess Elissa Gumushel |
2. You can do it anywhere: in your bedroom, on a deck, in a hot spring, at the mall, under a tree, in a vineyard, on a bridge, sidewalk, fire-escape; at work, at an ashram, atop a car, on a country road, inside someone's garage, at school, in a library, park, parasail seat or playa!
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| Bridge session in Nelson, BC. |
3. Sharing yoga with a child is better than bribing them to like you with a toy or candy. They will loooove yoga, intuitively feel more connected to you and you keep your karma clear. Plus, you'll hang your ego out to dry as you watch this little person effortlessly twist and bend into shapes you've only seen in your Dharma Mittra Asana book. Check out my friend's daughter, Ava, taking her afternoon nap in Yoganidrasana (Yogic Sleep Pose). My Inner Child didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Little people are amazing!
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| Yoga play in Fort St. James, BC. |
4. As much as I love words, sometimes, often, words simply fail to express satisfactorily the heart's deep joy, an inner peace, a playful spirit, a quiet mind, a raucous, reflective or restless, renegade soul. When at such synaptic crossroads, busting into a spontaneous yoga pose can sum up in an instant - in speechless superlatives - what the mind cannot think, the heart cannot sing and the body cannot dance alone. Yoga is a true conversation with the moment; one I never get tired of having.
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| At Mission Hill Vineyards in Kelowna, BC. |
5. It's a practice. That's all. Not a religion, dogma, bond, competition, immunity or make-over. Like any practice, it won't really make you perfect but it will make you a prac·ti·tion·er
[prak-tish-uh-ner].You are already YOU, anyway. But beware! Yoga has been known to have the side effect of making you even more perfectly you. Exercise caution-asana towards anyone who tells you otherwise, and then there's only one thing left to do: practice. Then practice some more. And keep practicing. Period.
