hope

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune--without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

-emily Dickinson

I really like that poem, i have it painted on the wall in my room at my parents home which i am sure they will paint over at some point in my lifetime. I had a wonderful time with my family over christmas. I spent a good chunk of the day on the 24th playing in the snow with my mother, brother and sister. We also cleared the driveway as some point, although all our efforts were in vain because it was continuously snowing through out the whole ordeal. I have to say that this was the best Christmas I can remember in a long time. Just when you think that your completely different from your family, they surprise you. Even my sister, who I really dont get along with at all! But it was really good, I was surprised. There was one point on Christmas Eve when we were cleaning the dishes after the hoards ate. Marissa said some thing, I dont remember what it was, but normally it would have been followed up with some sort of argument because I did something wrong. But she was just joking and she gave me a little smile and continued on with her duties. I know that if you reading this and you anyone other than my family members it wont really mean a lot to you. It was a big deal to me.

Then on Christmas Day we gave my Oma and Opa a Christmas present from the whole family, grandchildren and all. We sent them to Arizona and are paying for everything minus the food. We gave it to them and they cried, they were so touched, which in turn made me cry. :) My grandparents have given their lives to their family and would do anything and have given everything to us. I am really happy that we are able to send them on a trip just for them.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Years everyone!

late nights

So this past weekend, my wonderful Seattle friends came up to Vancouver for a visit, Leah, Steven, Everett and Laura (who I met the day she arrived at my home). All four of these people I feel are genuinely good people. I think it is getting harder in this life to find really good, kind people. Most individuals have a reason for acting kind, because they were told by their parents or because it will give them salvation. I feel like my little group of friends were just born with an innate sense of goodness. I remember from a course that I took there was a catholic philosopher who talked about human beings and one of the first things he argued was that all human beings are inherently good. Of course we discussed this in great depth, whether or not individuals are born 'good'. However this group of friends really makes me feel that this nameless philosopher was correct.

If you want to feel better, do something for someone else. It is a really good piece of wisdom, we get so wrapped up in ourselves that doing things for others is so important to help save the soul from the bubble wrap that we put it in. Right now we are living in a 'me' time, everything is about me, myself and I. What about the people around you get mad at, laugh with, ignore? People always say that you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others, which I think to an extent is true. You need to find balance in your life, other wise you are of no help to others. However, service is such an important thing, and not just service that is easy, service that makes you uncomfortable and forces you to give up something that you like for a little while. It is a beautiful humbling experience (humble seems to be a trend these days).

That is one thing I really like about catholicism, this wonderful sense of service. Service without the hopes of getting anything in return, just because it is the right thing to do. It is funny because as I write this I am thinking about a book of love languages. It talks about how there are four love languages and that you need to find the language that your love most connects with and honor them that way. If you want to know what your love language is you just need to look at how you show love. I havent read this book, but I am almost 100% sure that I show love through acts of service. The four kinds are acts of service, gifts, touch, and quality time, just listen to my little rant and think about how I show affection.

Giving up time is the most precious thing to me, so to give my time to another is more valuable than touch, gifts or quality time. All these things are very important, I am pritty sure I like all the next three equally but acts of service wins the gold medal. For example, right now it is 1:20am and I just stayed up cleaning and reorganizing the house so that it would be nice and clean for Monica. Although I am pritty sure she doesnt really care, quality time is more her kind of love.

I do!

My uncle who has been seeing the same woman for fifteen years, got married this afternoon at 3pm. I found out when I got a text message from my mother at 5pm saying, "Uncle Barrie is getting married at 3 today. Are you buys for dinner?" I am feeling a lot of emotions right now, mostly just this overwhelming love for my family. My uncle called up my mother two hours before hand and said "Hey, Sis, what are you doing this afternoon?" My mother because she is amazing got together a beautiful bouquet for Nina (Barries now wife), a wedding cake (in the form of a truffle), and a photographer (in the form of my brother home sick from work). I am almost to the point of tears as I write this because my mother is so wonderful. She always pulls through, always.

She forced them to have a family dinner this evening, and that was everything. I raced to Coquitlam for dinner that started at 7:15pm and my yoga class that I was teaching was over at 7:15pm. If it was not for Jenn I wouldnt have made it, she gave me a ride.

Then afterward dinner my mother, who is so wonderful, gave me a ride home. All the way to East Vancouver, which for my mother is far because she gets tired at night. I really lover her so much.

learning to be humble

Starting out as a yoga teacher is a very humbling experience. For some reason you have to pull teeth to get people to come to a class, just like going to the gym no one wants to do it. Then when you get someone to a class, they will either judge you right before you meet them, or I am judgeing myself for them!

When I first got home from LA I tried to host yoga classes in my house and I learnt all the ways that it did not work to get people to come out. I needed to have consistent days and times with regular reminders. Now that I have done that I have a regular student Abby, who is just a random that found me on the Internet, and other people who stop by for yoga. Also Hayley, Ed, and Monica have come out lots. Every Thursday night is seems that my place is transformed into a yoga studio. The couch gets moved, yoga mats are rolled out and I put little pillows i got from my mother on them and then POW! My house is a yoga studio. :) I really like it and I am starting to get more confident in my abilities because of these thursday nights.

This morning I organized a yoga class for the workers in my building. Currently my building hosts, the Factory Outlet, the hemming department, the GEC (call centre) and the SSC (head office people). Now, because I work for a company that encourages yoga I thought it would be easy to get people to come out. After waking up at 6am, getting here early to set up and stretch, no one showed up to my 8am class. I am not as disappointed at you might think but it was just good learning that you cant really rely on assumptions to get people to yoga. Even if they work for a yoga company, they are just people who want to sleep in like everyone else.

There is going to be another class next Thursday morning, and maybe no one is going to show up again, who knows. I am going to try being consistent because I really want this to work! How great would it be if I could end up teaching every morning at 8am here at my store! That is my goal, I would then be officially teaching five classes a week and getting paid for them. Yoga would be on its way to paying the bills, which is my goal. I am thinking that by March I am wanting to teach and not be supported by lululemon. Or maybe even moving down to part time which would be lovely. I have done my training and now it is time for a change. :)

PS I got a bike last night from my wonderful parents and grandparents and it is lovely! I rode it to work today and who knew that riding an adult bike compared to a childes bike would make such a difference! :)

december

Alright, so December is a stressful month no matter which way you look at it. I have transferred locations and no longer work in a mall so I was hoping that things would be easier over here. Yes, working in a mall was stressful but you know what sucks, working in a store that has it super easy and complains ALL the time about how hard they have it. They have no idea how lucky they are and they just spend all their time complaining. They are so resistant to any form of change, even if it will make life easier for them, which makes me wonder about the world. So that was part of my day yesterday, I dont like to complain, but I was very frustrated with them and compiled with other things it made my day worse to not have self reliant coworkers.

I know that I havent talked about my water class with Twee! I think that I need to be a better yoga student! The day after my Sunday yoga class, which didnt end up being water, i felt like i had been kicked in the stomach! My stomach muscles were SO sore I had no idea that I could have worked that hard. First let me say I was super excited when I showed up and Twee remembered my name! I know that it is just a little thing but it was an exciting little thing to me, names are precious and people dont understand that so they just forget. So this was a happy moment for me, anyways the class is proceeding and we are doing lots of shoulder work. So I am thinking to myself, "hmm, this is similar to how Shiva warmed us up when we were going to go into Pincha Maryasana (sp?)". So the class proceeds and Twee says to me, "Claudia I need your help on this next pose" guess which pose it was....

So let me explain what this pose actually is, it is a forearm stand, so instead of using your hands like one would in a hand stand you use your forearms. If you want to understand how hard this pose is try right now just going to the ground putting both your forearms and hands flat on the ground, then straighten your legs and walk them towards you. What your going to notice is that pesky place between your shoulder blades that we all let atrophy every time we go on a computer, read a book, study, eat. Any time you have bad posture and are hunched over, you are taking strength away from this area in your spine.

This pose is one of my nemises and I had to do it with Twee correcting, talking and explaining things to the rest of the class. Keep your rib cage in, tuck your tail bone, press your feet into my hands (which are pressing down into my feet to keep me strong). All these things required my core all that strength that i didnt know i pocessed held me up for a good 2 mins in the pose itself but we did a good 8 mins of prep work, which is also hard as you can attest to if you tried what i told you to earlier.

I was very honored that Twee choose me to demonstrate the hardest pose in the class. I really like her, not just cus she remembered my name or picked me to demonstrate, she has really great energy. So anyways today I am going to come home from work and do a wicked yoga class for myself so that i can prep for my classes tomorrow. :) I am inspired to work hard now, after I felt my tummy all day Monday. I dont want to lose all that muscle strength! I think that Shiva is coming to town in January so I need to be in shape for her class!!

without words

So I have a confession, I have been a bad yoga student since arriving home from my training in LA. I havent practiced nearly as much as I should or would like to, I also havent been doing any of my home work.

Last weekend I did 10 yoga classes for the 24 hr relay, which was great, however it was a yoga binge. I did not contiune going to classes after that, until 1pm this afternoon and the class today changed my life. I know you think I am being dramatic, but I dont care because your the one reading my blog. Twee, a student of my teacher Shiva Rae, is in town doing a workshop at Semperviva and I was fortunate enough to get my shift covered and go to her class. Now one thing that you have to understand about Shiva Rae is that her classes are unlike anything offered in this fair city of ours. They are dynamic, volitile, beautiful, expressions of the human body, they are prayers and they are wonderful. Twee is Shiva's student and she does not dissapoint. I was brought to tears twice during this class, I even called work to tell them I was going to be a hour late tomorrow because Twee is teaching again tomorrow. I wish that I were able to articulate better the magnitude of this class because I am not able to comprehend it in words. One thing say is what a beautiful job Twee did of encorperating philosophy into her class. I was able to learn so much. It is not that she just in talked about philosophy but she made us move and breathe it, every pose refected a struggle inside ourselves or an expression of the self or a hindu god.

During the class or after the class I am not sure when, I was compelled for the first time to purchase maala beads. Maala beads is a string of 108 beads that are used during meditation. A person is supposed to repeat a mantra 108 times moving thier fingers along the beads so that they can go into a meditative transe and not worry about counting. I have wanted to purchase these beads before but, I always felt like a poser. I was not ready for them, and they were not ready for me. When I got home today, for the first time I was able to meditate with my beads.

Tomorrow Twee is teaching a water class, another thing with my training is we learnt how to structure classes around the five elements. When I was away, water classes were my essence, they were perfect for me. There is no other class that I connected with so quickly and there is no other teacher in our area that teaches this style. This is why I am going into work late, when there is a class refecting your essence and you dont know the next time you are able to take one is, you go to the class. I will let you know tomorrow how the class was, Hayley is coming as well. I am really excited for her to experience this class, I want her to understand, it is going to blow her mind.

Infidel

So this week I was consumed by the book I was reading, this usually happens when I read, any chance I get I pick up my book. Anyways the book I read was called Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, it is the story of Ayaan's life and growing up in Somalia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and eventually ending in Holland then America. I am not sure if you remember the Dutch producer Theo van Gogh, he was murdered by a muslim man in Holland in 2004 for producing a film called Submission. The film was about the suffering Muslim women go through, and the film was written by Ayaan. When the movie came out there was a huge up roar in the Islamic community and many people wanted Ayaan dead for the things she said about Islam.

I really enjoyed reading the novel because I identified with Ayaan and her internal struggles with her faith. Through out the whole novel Ayaan is able to follow her heart and know what was right and wrong. She never gave up and accepted her fate, her arranged marriage, her faiths views on certain issues. I like to think that I am able to listen to and follow my heart. You know inside when something is right or wrong, your intuition is able to prevent you from making wrong choices. Sometimes we make wrong choices anyways, but we know inside what is right and wrong. Ayaan in her life went through phases with her faith and they are the same phases that I have been through. I started out as a little twerp (as my dad would say), I just did what I was supposed too and didnt really put much thought into it. I just did what I was told. Eventually I got to the point where I really wanted to follow all the rules and understand my faith. I went to a bible study, conferences, YFC, lead a youth group, it was good times. Eventually there were things that I was unable to accept about the church so I began looking else where.

Since then I have been learning about my Jewish faith that I was born with, I have also been learning about Hindu belief system (which is super complicated) because of yoga. Along with that I have wanted to meditate and visit a Buddhist temple to see what it was like. The more I look at everything, the more I realise that it is all the same. The ideas and principles that are talked about just have different names. In Catholicism the Holy Spirit is that fire inside of you that encourages you to do something, the aspect of God within all of us spurring us forward. In Yogic philosophy or Hindu I am not sure which one, the Spanda is that fire inside of us spurring us on. Whenever you feel excitement for anything, or motivated to write in your blog, that is all Spanda inside of us. If you know more about the topic please post, I am by no means an expert. I just find it all so interesting how similar it is.

Reading this book has really made me reflect on my own journey and made me want to understand and learn more.

24hrs of Yoga

So in the past 48 hrs I have done 10, 75 minute yoga classes and become focused. I have a really hard time concentrating, I love to do lot however my attention span rarely allows for me to attend to one thing for longer than an hour, unless that thing is Lindy Hop. Even then it is in a structured setting where the dancing last for four hours on Saturday nights. It is easy to keep attention when you only have a prescribed amount of time, however finding the determination outside of that is difficult.

This morning feeling surprisingly great after all that yoga, I have cleaned my home and attempted to give myself a clean canvas to start from. The major challenge in yoga for me is not the asanas, generally I find them easy, however it is the focus it has given me that I didnt know I lacked until I found it. I remember when I began Bikrams Yoga, the classes were 90minutes long and saviour from school, if I didnt do yoga I could not bring myself to concentrate on any homework assignment. My world began to revolve in 90minute intervals, I would do something for 90mins take a break and then I could continue. I have long left the Bikrams Yoga world behind but because I am a yoga nomad I have had classes that develop the same focus. Although I have connected better with the energy in the room and the asanas sequences.

I was able to do so many amazing classes with great instructors with completely different styles this weekend and I learnt SO much. There were a couple instructors that stood out to me for different reasons over the weekend:

Christine Price Clark, is an anusara instructor in Vancouver and she was amazing. The class she taught, I dont remember anything specific about the movements it was just her energy that filled the room. It was positive and warm and we had her complete attention for the whole class.

Steve, one of the owners of Yaletown Yoga my favourite studio, taught power yoga. At the beginning of this classes we all huddled close while Steve talked about his experience with mantras and the ego. He had us all think about our mantra before the class started, and then constantly throughout the entire class he was grounding us and reminding us to repeat our mantras in our heads. So a mantra could be, "I am healed" if you are unhealthy or have an injury, or it could be 'I am focused" which is my new mantra. Then once the class was over he made us all close our eyes and he came around and tapped us on the shoulder. Once he did this we were supposed to state our mantra out loud for the universe and room to hear. :)

Paige, was my first instructor at Yaletown yoga and I havent had the chance to take her class since the first time a year ago. The first class I took with her blew me away, I was awestruck! This time she had live accompaniment for her class, one her friends is a musician and played the dejambe and this long curved wooden tube, I dont know its name. The instrument was taller than me started narrow and widened at the end, when the she played the instrument the sound was low and had a deep vibratory quality. However before the music and asanas began we chanted for about 15minutes in Sanscrit. I am not sure at all what we said, and that is not the important part, it was really beautiful and nice to sing in a group. She said that Sanscrit was designed so that the words themselves would change the vibratory quality in the room or the person singing them for that matter. That is one thing I miss about church, I really love to sing and maybe this is why I love gospel music so much, I really resonate with beautiful sound. If there is a bad song on my mood noticeably worsens. Anyways her class was all about vibrations and it was really nice and well done.

I also got to take Eion Finns class for the first time and I was curious to see if I would like him. First of all let me say he is the biggest lululemon celebrity ever, his DVDs are in all our locations across the world. It pays to be apart of lulu if your going to sell Yoga DVDs. I actually have one of Eions DVD and I think I have only done it once, maybe. As someone who was a once community leader at metrotown and has worked for the company for 3 years now I had high expectations. Maybe that is why Eions class was not my favourite, it didnt seem any different from any number of classes I could have taken from different teachers. Nothing amazed me, or spoke to my soul.

There was also I couple of things that I noticed about the Vancouver yoga scene, having done my training in LA I feel like I can look upon it with a different lens. There is a definite love of hand stands here. In two out 15 classes last night we did headstands which I know doesnt sound like a lot, but the way it was approached really emphasised its importance in the asana world. When I was in LA handstands were just another asana no really huge importance was placed on them which was nice because they are definitely something I am working on. :)

Also it is really hard to be still in yoga, Shiva has this beautiful way of including music and movement to her classes while still having alignment and form. I cant wait for Twee to come to town because she is one of Shivas students and I miss it! Maybe that is why I didnt like Eion Finns class, he is very still and played music completely unrelated to what is going on in the class. There is this one song that I have called "Well, Well, Well" by Ben Harper and The Blind Boys of Alabama, live at the Apollo Theatre! It is an amazing song with beautiful sound and harmonies and this really great vocal bassist. However the lyrics are not really something that is appropriate for a yoga class, one line, 'dig a hole in the ground straight down to hell, till there ain't no more water in the well well well'. The song is about struggle, not necessarily appropriate fora happy yoga class. Anyways, enough about Eion, this relay was also the first time that I felt like I was part of the Vancouver yoga community. I usually feel like an outsider, in most studios because I am a nomad, I dont have one studio that I subscribe to. It was nice to belong.

Anyways I wrote goals after this weekend for my yoga practice. Here they are:
-finish one assignment/book per month for training
-enroll in an anatomy course
-take part of Twee's workshop at Sempriviva
-learn how to meditate (there is a Buddhist temple close to my house that i want to visit)

That is good for now. I am even going to write my goals so I have something concrete to work on and write out. Thanks for reading. :)

Love. Love. Love.